FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Excellent ISS and Shuttle pass

[Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Steve,

I too was impressed with tonights show. I was observing epsilon 
Aurigae and the spacecraft passed right through Auriga. I did not see 
Jules Verne even though I looked hard for it. I was distracted with 
the photometry, however. The ISS was very  very bright as you 
mentioned and I have nothing to compare it with. But as a guess 
probably -4 or -5. Endevour was very bright also. As they passed the 
meridian going NE they faded fast. I looked away an instant and the 
ISS was gone. I followed Endevour with binoculars, but it too dimmed 
out quickly. It seemed to flash some before being gone.

I too am awed by things like that. Most people just yawn and don't 
even car to go outside to take  look. How sad.

Clear skies!

Jeff

At 20:28 -0700 03/25/2008, Steve Coe wrote:
>Howdy all;
>Well, I don't remember having a better ISS and Shuttle pass than this
>evening.  I rolled back the roof on the observatory so I could block off the
>lights from my neighbors and get a little "dark" adapted.
>
>All three objects were right on time and passed from WSW to NNE.  First was
>the Jules Verne cargo craft, it got up to about the brightness of Bellatrix
>and stayed there for most of its path, before diving into the shadow of the
>Earth between the Big and Little Dippers.
>
>Now, the Big Guy, the International Space Station, comes along.  It gets
>brighter, and brighter and then much brighter than Sirius and stays that way
>for at least 20 seconds or so.  Then fades toward the north.
>
>Trailing the pack is the Shuttle Endevour and it gets about as bright as
>Rigel and right at its highest altitude it flashes brighter than Sirius for
>two seconds or so.  The panels much have lined up just right for a very
>short time.  I have never seen that before.
>
>I sat for a moment on the drummer's stool in my observatory and thought of
>all the men and women who have had the skill and courage to create for
>humanity a presence in outer space.  I am clear it is "just" low Earth orbit
>and it is not finished yet, but it is still up there and people are living
>there continuously.  And, it took the end of the most expensive "war" in
>history to have the two enemies in that war decide to create this marvel.
>If you had told me in 1975 when I was on patrol in a submarine gathering
>intelligence on that enemy, that this space station would be created by
>Russia and the U.S. and that they would be occupying it together, I would
>have doubted your sanity.  That is a feat just as great as the engineering
>of this amazing device.
>
>All in all a great show;
>Steve Coe

-- 
Jeff Hopkins
HPO SOFT
Counting Photons
http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
7812 West Clayton Drive
Phoenix, Arizona 85033-2439 U.S.A.
(623)849-5889
(623) 247-1190 (Fax)
www.hposoft.com
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