cliff@terak.UUCP (08/17/84)
<take it, I don't care> Yup, what you probably saw was a satellite. Based on your description of brightness and speed it was probably 400km - 800km high and in a low inclination orbit. The highest inclination possible is 90 degrees or polar. Determining inclination really requires two seperated observations on the same orbit. Next shuttle launch watch how fast the crew goes across North America. 'bout nine minutes. At 320km altitude the orbit time is less then 90 minutes. (please don't flame my math I left my battery operated brain at home today so we're talking ballpark) What I find interesting is your time of observation, midnight. The trigometry get a little thick but that bird was sunlit from directly over the pole. This same object at the same position, relative to you, would probably not be visible in the winter. I usually see the best satellites about 60-90 minutes after sunset. Any later than that and the ones still in the sun are so high you need binoculars to spot them. They also have a slower apparent motion so they don't catch your eye as well. A geostationary satellite has a real slow apparent motion :-). If you can see one of those babies please donate your eyes to Kitt Peak. My best satellite story involved a newspaper blurp saying that STS 2 would be visible at 4:51 am over Phoenix. They were in a white side down attitude doing some kind of heating structure tests. I turned on the TV because one of the normally blank cable channels was displaying the raw NASA feed. (I also watched the generic launch without the network boobs stepping all over CAPCOM) The houston display showed the shuttle halfway between Honolulu and L.A. at 4:44. So I went outside and looked to the southwest. BOOM! It came out of the shadow and was the brightest object in the moonless sky. In three or four minutes I lost it in the northeast stars and ran inside. That sucker was over Chicago! I still get goosebumps from that one. I remain Cliff Cordes ...hao!noao!terak!cliff