RE: Wallops Island Notilucent Cloud Experiment

From: Dale Ireland (direland@drdale.com)
Date: Sun Sep 20 2009 - 04:01:31 UTC

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     Thanks Joe
    I went to the News 12 web site to read your blog but was surprised to see
    the New 12 site is "pay per view" and your blog is blocked. However,
    googling  your name and news 12 took me right to the blog and around the
    fence. Will I get arrested for cyber burglary?
    Dale
    
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Skywayinc@aol.com [mailto:Skywayinc@aol.com] 
    > Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 5:25 PM
    > To: SeeSat-L@satobs.org
    > Subject: Wallops Island Notilucent Cloud Experiment
    > 
    > This evening, NASA launched a Black Brant Rocket  from 
    > Wallops Island, Virginia in order to attempt to create an 
    > artificial  noctilucent cloud from a point roughly 100 miles 
    > east of Wallops and at an  altitude of about 170 miles. I had 
    > alerted my television audience last night  on News 12 about 
    > the launch and posted a blog about it both at the News 12  
    > site and also at the Hayden Planetarium.  
    > 
    > I wasn't exactly sure  what we would see from the New York 
    > Tri-State Area, but my wife, Renate and I  were on the 
    > lookout, directing our attention toward an area about 20 to  
    > 30 degrees above the southern horizon.  Our location was 
    > Putnam Valley,  NY, about 50 miles north of Manhattan.  Skies 
    > were perfectly clear with  excellent 
    > transparency.   
    > 
    > The Black Brant Rocket lifted off  from wallops on schedule 
    > at 7:46 p.m. EDT
    > 
    > Six minutes later at 7:52 p.m.  my wife and I, saw a 
    > brilliant object, of at least magnitude -3 to -4,  displaying 
    > a wide, fan-shaped tail . . . like a comet . . . appearing 
    > above the Teapot asterism in Sagittarius.  
    > 
    > The "tail" was pointing  downward and gradually lengthened to 
    > about 10 or 15-degrees and widened to  about 5 or 10 degrees 
    > over a span of about 30 seconds.  
    > 
    > It was all  so quick!
    > 
    > The "head" of the comet (which was the rocket's fourth stage) 
    >  rapidly faded out and the "tail" gradually faded over the 
    > next minute or so  into the background of the sky.  I should 
    > note that my southern sky  suffers from considerable light 
    > pollution, so the residual glow probably  disappeared more 
    > quickly as opposed to a completely dark sky. Even with 7X  
    > binoculars, it was difficult to discern after about a minute or so.
    > 
    > It  was very impressive . . . albeit short-lived.  
    > I'm sure many people  along the US East Coast were surprised 
    > by this strange sight!
    > 
    > -- joe  rao  
    > 
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