Although the sky was mostly clear here in San Carlos, a patch of Bay
fog obscured my view to the north. Didn't see a thing.
On Jan 15, 2006, at 2:14 AM, Marek Cichanski wrote:
> Well, it's not often that one can write an OR within 5 minutes or
> so of an observing event, but I guess that's the way it goes with
> hypervelocity re-entries...
>
> My father and I just saw the Stardust re-entry from my folks' place
> here in Redding. Talk about fast!
>
> It's completely clear here, under a just-past-full moon. I happened
> to see a finder chart for Redding a few hours ago, just before I
> went to bed. This, plus the fact that there were two of us
> observing, was the key to seeing the SRC's reentry. I knew that
> atmospheric entry interface was due to occur when the SRC was right
> about between Cassiopea and the northern end of Auriga. The SRC was
> then supposed to pass a bit above Polaris, and on towards Arcturus
> and Alphecca. At the appointed time, I was looking intently at the
> Cas/Aur area, expecting to catch the beginning of the SRC's
> heating. I thought maybe I'd be able to use the image-stabilized
> binos to watch it start to heat up.
>
> It was my father who spotted the SRC, which appeared as a very
> bright star moving rapidly from about the tip of the Little Dipper
> over towards the Arcturus area. I'd say that it was somewhat
> brighter than Arcturus, and that it was visible to us for several
> seconds. I hadn't seen it at all in the Cas/Aur area. If there
> hadn't been the two of us observing, I rather doubt that I'd have
> caught it. It was a team effort.
>
> The color looked a bit yellowish, not pure white, rather like a
> yellow-orange star, kind of like, well, Arcturus, but a bit
> 'warmer' of a color than that. I can't say that I saw any obvious
> tail or trail.
>
> It was really cool to see the probe's reentry. Man, talk about
> hypervelocity! I hope that all went well with the parachute
> deployment and the recovery.
>
> Clear Skies,
> Marek
Received on Sun Jan 15 02:25:07 2006