Hi all -
It was a clear, breezy, and unusually warm night (min temp +16C/60F, quite
warm for this elevation), so after looking at Mars, I turned my 12.5-inch
Newtonian to look for Chandra X-ray Observatory as it approached apogee. Below
is the Highfly output for this object, however, I used a 4-week old NASA JPL
Horizons output to actually look for it. At 0700, the Horizons output had
Chandra passing between a distinctive pair of 12th-magnitude stars. At the
appointed time, I failed to see Chandra between the stars, but less than a
minute later, as it pulled clear from the "glare" of those stars, I was able to
glimpse it. I tracked it for 20 minutes, during which time it passed by enough
comparison stars to get a good magnitude estimate for it. At magnitude 14.4,
it was just about what Highfly predicted for it, using a Quicksat standard
magnitude of 3.5.
This is the most distant (and faintest) human-made object I have ever seen,
having had no luck with the NEAR, Cassini, and Stardust fly bys.
I may be one of the few people to have seen both this spacecraft and the
person for whom it is named, Dr. Chandrasekhar. Back in the 1960's, when I was
an astronomy major in college, I went to one of his talks at the University of
Chicago. He talked about stellar evolution, and I recall understanding some of
his talk, but being rather stumped by some of the details (I was a mere
sophomore at the time, and hadn't learned differential equations and such yet).
Highfly output (distances in miles):
39.877 105.391 8950. Coal Creek Canyon 2000 17.0 20
2001 Jun 23/24 Sat eve/Sun mornUT
25867 CHANDRA M 3.5 ELDY 4 M2 0
Hrs Min Alt Azi Mag Hgt R A Dec Range
7 15 76 254 14.2 74634 17 15.8 34.4 74753
I SAW MIR !
Perhaps this will be the last message on this topic, unless, of course,
someone replies. Back when Mir left us, someone (Jay Respler?) asked for last
sightings from mid-northern latitudes (specifically, 40 north). I'm a few
minutes south of 40 north, and here's the Quicksat output for my last sighting
on the evening of March 12, local time:
2001 Mar 13 Tue UT 152 1229
H M S Tim Al AziC Dir Mag Dys F Hgt Shd Rng R A Dec
2 8 19 .2 14 224C 269 .8 2 0 151 106 503 321-22.2 Mir
Mir was faintly visible to the naked eye at magnitude 2 until it slipped
behind a mountain wave cloud, never to be seen again (by me).
Cheers, Rich Keen
Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado, USA (39.877N, 105.391W, elevation 2728m)
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