From my hometown of Palmer Township (very near Easton, PA) about 55 miles north of Philadelphia, I got to see the space shuttle launch! Due to live coverage from a local TV station (NBC10) of the space shuttle launch and an alert about it being possibly visible in 8 minutes, I ran out to a good vantage point. Right on time it started to chug along, about 20 degrees above the horizon - real fast... and using binoculars I saw a short tail as if it was a real slow fireball meteor! A short but definite flaming tail of what must have been the engine flames! Just a fantastic thrill. Then is sputtered a few times and went out before reaching the East - going from SSE to the ESE. - And when it sputtered out, it was out like a light... faintly visible with 10 by 80 mm binocs. At that time it was not at all visible to the naked eye. While the engine was working, I guess it was a magnitude 1 or brighter. All in all the bright phase lasted about 20 to 30 seconds. Terry Pundiak Palmer Township (Easton), PA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Dec 05 2001 - 19:33:32 EST