Thanks Marek! Glad you guys saw it.
I tried to see it from Charleston Slough (Mountain View). The sky was
mostly clear. The Moon was bright, but looking
out over SF Bay to the north the sky wasn't too bright and the horizon is
excellent. I had a hard time seeing all of Cassiopeia.
There were at least four cars at the Slough waiting for the Stardust probe.
I walked past the entrance and past the
restrooms to get the street lights well behind me. Another fellow was
standing near the street. We didn't see the probe.
One fellow in one of the other cars stopped and said he didn't see it
either.
Rich
> 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 03:03:24 2006