by Marek Cichanski
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.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 15, 2006 02:20:10 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 02, 2006 21:11:06 PT