In a message dated 12/18/06 9:22:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, szymanss@hotmail.com writes: << It's my great hope that chicago will have clear conditions to the SE. these visible passes during docking or undocking/ approach/ sep procedures sure seem rare, I saw my last in 1999 or 2000! a question I have for some of the veterans: at these ranges (>547 km and 200m), will I be able to distinugish the 2 separate objects? my gut tells me yes. >> I was wondering the same question, except I live in the Greater New York Area. On Tuesday, the Shuttle/ISS tandem is predicted come closest to us at 6:03 p.m. EST, at a range distance of 499 kilometers or 310.02 statute miles. So . . . if the distance/gap between the Shuttle and the ISS is 600-feet and is viewed from a distance of 310.02 miles, what is the angular separation between the two vehicles. To solve this problem, we would use the equation 57.3 x G _______ D Where G = the gap between the two vehicles and D = the distance of the two vehicles from the observer. But first, we must either change the size of the gap to miles. or the distance to feet. In this case, it seems easier to change miles to feet. Since 1 statute mile = 5,280 feet, 310.02 miles = 1,636,952 feet. Now we can write: 57.3 x 600 Separation in angular degrees = ___________ = 0.021 degrees 1,636,952 So the Shuttle and ISS should be separated by only 1.26 arc minutes or 75.6 arc seconds. I strongly suspect that this very small separation will make both objects appear as one to the unaided eye for most people (I "think" that for the average person, 3-arc minutes would be about the limit of visual perception; 7X binoculars on the other hand should quickly reveal that there are indeed two objects flying by. -- joe rao ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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