Re: We saw the Centaur fuel dump!
3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL
Sat, 8 Nov 97 08:34:08 PST
Here's a report from a San Francisco Bay Area star party that I didn't
attend. I didn't see the Centaur dump myself (I didn't check Seesat-L
and had completed my sat obs by then), but at least some folks saw
it by accident.
... off topic stuff about galaxies, Jupiter, etc. omitted ...
>When ever a group of public came by, I quickly zipped back to M31. Just
>then (about 8:53 p.m.) I heard big exclamations from the other end of
>the row. They were yelling, "Look up! Directly overhead! It's a
>comet!" Everyone from my end of the row of course looked up and I
>heard, "Oh that is M31." Not. I could barely see M31 with averted
>vision. This was big and bright. Plus it was in the wrong spot. It
>looked to be about 8 degrees above M31 (away from Andromeda). My first
>thought was that it was bright lights of a plane behind the clouds. But
>there were no clouds, so another theory trashed. James, a nice public
>guy who seemed very interested in astronomy, quickly pointed the scope.
>WoW!! At first I thought it WAS a comet! Then I could see it. A
>satellite (or something) had a small fan shaped tail coming from it that
>did look very much like a comet. But something had happened. A
>separation? Behind the satellite and tail was another fan shaped tail.
>But it was much larger! It more than filled the view in the scope at
>70x. The larger tail did not appear to move while the satellite and
>smaller tail moved away from it. At the head of the larger tail were
>two other tails that extended out to the sides. The small tail at the
>satellite eventually faded and the satellite continued to move on.
>
>Sandra Macika
Craig