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Day 906: Look! In The Sky! It’s Falling And There’s No Light!

VatulBlog BFF, Julie, writes:

Wednesday night is going to be one hell of an astronomy/aerospace adventure, it seems.

A ‘NOTAM’ is apparently a Notice To Airmen, and this one is posted for tomorrow.

… I  have made the following plot, which shows that USA 193 will pass through the restricted zone on 2008 Feb 21, near 03:30 UTC (Feb 20, 10:30 PM EST.

Which this guy suggests could correspond to the orbit of USA193. The satellite would be there at about 3:30am UTC February 21, which translates to 9:30pm CST February 20 – look here if you don’t believe me – the peak of the lunar eclipse.

Lunar eclipse article here for those I didn’t send this out to before.

==

Another post to the SatObs forum suggests that shooting down the satellite during the totality phase of the lunar eclipse is “good for optical tracking of faint fragments.”

Note that my plane back from Houston will touch down in New Orleans at exactly 8:58PM.  With the promised color show (red and turquoise, squeeee!) in mind, I hope I can get some cool eclipse shots during and on landing.

3 comments… add one
  • Varg February 20, 2008, 10:52 AM

    I will be out there with the ole binocs. Weather permitting of course.

  • Varg February 21, 2008, 1:11 PM

    Manged to catch a few glimpses of the eclipse through the clouds. I would have rather seen it clear but it was pretty cool seeing penumbra dance in and out of the clouds. Caught a bit of Saturn too. But hey, check THIS out! You’re all clear kid! Let’s blast this thing and go home!

    LINK

  • Maitri February 21, 2008, 2:01 PM

    Varg, I saw NOTHING. My flight out of Houston was delayed by the rains and then the missing flight crew. THANKS WEATHER.

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