Perseus glint map added to NEAR ESB page

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message: Alan Pickup: "Decay watch: NEAR Delta 2 rocket"
• Previous message: Brian Webb: "VAFB launch"

As The Beatles once sang, "It's getting better all the time"... There
are some more nice updates to the NEAR Earth Swing By page at
http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/ESB/ESB.html

The latest additions are a map of the constellation Perseus, annotated
to show where the glints are expected to occur for many U.S. cities, and
a helpful link for those less familiar with the night sky to assist them
in locating Perseus.  The map shows stars down to 6th magnitude.

Here are the cities mentioned on the Perseus map:
Boston, NYC, Ithaca, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, St. Louis,
Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami,
New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas,
Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco,
Sacramento.

Note that the map is oriented such that the tracks appear to be
going up and to the right, but they will really be going down and
right, so you'll have to tilt the chart somewhat to make it match
the sky.  Of course, telescopic views are another matter altogether
(inverted, reversed, etc.), and the map does say it's primarily
for telescopic observers.

Randy John and Rob Matson may be pleased to note that their Skysat and
Skymap predictions match the Perseus map extremely well, at least
for the handful of locations I checked.  Nice going!

Since I, like many others, sometimes take for granted the information
found on the web, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the NEAR
team for all their efforts to make this unique event accessable.  Now,
if only the lousy winter weather cooperates.

BTW, I responded to Brian Howell's note that asked for help in
locating the NEAR glint from his South Carolina location.  I offered
to send him a GIF of the Skymap track (many thanks to Bjorn for
posting the trajectory data), but I'll probably have to download some
utility to take the contents of the clipboard and convert it to a GIF
file.  I know I can probably find many such programs at the shareware
sites, but should anyone have a recommendation I'd like to hear from
you.  It would probably be best to reply to me privately, since it
might be considered off-topic.

 Craig Cholar    3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL

• Next message: Alan Pickup: "Decay watch: NEAR Delta 2 rocket"
• Previous message: Brian Webb: "VAFB launch"