Using Ted Molzcan's MECO TLE's for Discovery's launch (why can't NASA come up with proper MECO TLE's - I get correct results with their state vector but their respective TLE's are all over the place! Should we recommend Ken Ernades' VEC2TLE program to them?) I get the following times and places where a transit of Discovery and the External Tank in front of the Sun would be visible (times are in UTC): 14:58:30 52.193 -7.461 14:59:00 51.829 -4.164 14:59:30 51.371 -0.920 15:00:00 50.822 2.262 15:00:30 50.184 5.374 15:01:00 49.462 8.409 15:01:30 48.659 11.365 15:02:00 47.779 14.240 15:02:30 46.825 17.033 15:03:00 45.802 19.748 15:03:30 44.711 22.389 15:04:00 43.556 24.962 15:04:30 42.338 27.476 15:05:00 41.057 29.942 15:05:30 39.715 32.377 15:06:00 38.306 34.801 15:06:30 36.825 37.245 15:07:00 35.260 39.758 15:07:30 33.581 42.430 15:08:00 31.722 45.457 15:08:30 29.435 49.537 The observation would be most challenging at the Western part of this line where the transit last a mere 0.4 second and you have to be within about a 1 km of the central line. Conditions are more relaxed toward the East. In Turkey the transit lasts 1 second and it's enough to be within 3 km of the central line. How accurate the actual insertion at MECO is and what would happen if the launch gets delayed toward the end of its window I don't really know. In the two days that follow Sun transits of the ISS and Discovery can be observed at selected locations in the Northern hemisphere. Currently it looks like I might be able to see a transit of the ISS followed a few seconds later by a transit of Discovery from my very hometown on 28-JUL-05. Let's hope they don't mess up the launch again! Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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