Should the launch of Shuttle Discovery occur on Sunday, liftoff would be at 7:43 p.m. EDT. It is unfortunate that it does not come several minutes sooner, because as it passes south of NYC about 8 minutes later it will still be in the Earth's shadow . . . from Discovery, the Sun would appear about 2-degrees below the horizon. If sunlight were shining on the Orbiter and External Tank, it would appear as a brilliant object . . . on the order of Venus brightness! The only other time I can remember this happening was in September 1991; MECO and the jettisoning of the orange External Tank was accompanied by a "puff" or a small vapor cloud. With binoculars, the Shuttle and tank remained visible thanks to reflected sunlight and you could actually see the two slowly separating in binoculars as they disappeared beyond the northeast horizon. If the launch were delayed until Monday, a similar observation to 1991 would be possible. But the weather prospects look more favorable locally (from NY) for getting a view of the Shuttle on Sunday as opposed to Monday . . . at least that's how it looks right now. Here is an article I wrote for SPACE.com detailing visiblity of the Shuttle launch for the US East Coast: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/090310-space-shuttle-launch-spotting.html -- joe rao -- joe r. **************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 12 2009 - 06:09:01 UTC