Floyd Weaver wrote: > I saw something, that appeared to be the reentry. I did > not know that anything was due to reenter but while I was out > looking at sats I saw something that looked to be a possible > reentry. At about 2:55Z (or just > before) something in the north caught my attention. Blazing > across the sky was multiple burning objects. When I first saw > them they were near the north star and they continued toward > the east, and disappeared due east. I was not paying close > attention to time or position while I was watching such a > sight but I think they may have been just above the north > star when I first saw them and might have reached about 50 > degrees max elv. I'd estimate it took close to 15 seconds to > go from the north to the east. The trajectory seemed to match > 22273 but from the elset below it should have passed to my > southwest about 75 degree elv. Since it was 5 minutes or so > early that would have changed it. Allowing for the object's apprximately 7 min early arrival, I confirm that it tracked north of you, and passed above Polaris. There is no doubt that you observed the decay. > A notable characteristic of these fireballs was that > they were not just bright objects trailing fire, but had a > glow or haze around them. There also was not a lot of > continuous bright fireballs. Its not the easiest to make a > picture with words but it was not like the bright sharp > meteors with thin trails. I suspect the haze and thin trails are plasma, as seen during space shuttle entries. It was quite evident during the decay of Raduga 33. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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