Hi to you all, report from Sydney, Northern Suburbs area, Thursday 22nd March late pm. Patchy cloud over Sydney promised at least glimpses of Mir, up to an hour before the predicted time of 8.10pm for Mirs rise. At 8pm the whole Sky cleared from NW, W to S and SE as if to guide Mir along its course. Mir seemed to be a little bit late but right on the predicted 'Heavens Above' track moving at quite a fast rate, at first it seemed a bit weak, like Wednesdays short pass, but as it gained altitude to about 40 degrees in Eridanus, began to get very bright, but the distinctive yellow. I counted about 30 seconds timing my open camera for the 2nd shot SW then reset for South including the Southern Cross, Mir began to fade and with binoculars tracked it as far as the top of Triangulum Australis, but amazing change in colour to bright red, reflecting the hues from our usual sunset effects, getting deeper in colour and duller until it was lost to sight altogether at about 8.16pm. A fitting pass for its finale, and should have been easy for the public and layman to find and see. I will report on the Heavens above map and chart predictions when the film is printed and the imaged stars are compared,although by that time Mir will have met its fate. The report for Wednesday was disappointing, Mir was not bright at all, as in the past,and rather hard to find the only redeeming fact was that it passed close West of the Pleiades and just right of Saturn so was 'found' for its brief rise into the shadow at 21 degees altitude, although it could be tracked , just, with binoculars for a way further,ending at about 8.32pm. Paul Shallow Observations Coordinator NSAS ( Northern Sydney Astronomical Society) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 22 2001 - 06:47:12 PST