Set my alarm and got up early this morning to view a predicted near-overhead pass of the UARS satellite over my home in Putnam Valley, NY. The NW to SE pass came pretty much on schedule between 5:47 and 5:50 a.m. (according to Heavens-Above). As expected, movement was quite rapid . . . it streaked across the sky much quicker than the ISS or the Space Shuttle. During the three or so minutes I had it in view, the satellite slowly rose in brightness from about magnitude 3 to 0, then suddenly flared/flashed in brightness to about -2 or -3, then quickly dropped off to near-invisibility. Then the whole sequence began anew. It did this a total of three times before it vanished behind the treetops in my southeast. The thing must be tumbling. There is another high pass scheduled for tomorrow morning . . . UARS will emerge from the Earth's shadow near its highest point in the sky of nearly 80-degrees at around 5:30 a.m., then a relatively low evening pass is set for Saturday at around 7:40 p.m. (if it's still in orbit). Unfortunately, a protracted spell of cloudy weather is expected to settle in tonight and last much of this week, so perhaps this morning was my last view. of UARS. :( -- joe rao _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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