[Launch Alert] Mars Rover Seen
Brian Webb
[email protected]
Wed, 16 Jul 2003 20:46:37 -0700
ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Brian Webb
Ventura County, California
E-mail: [email protected]
Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp
Reaching more than 2,100 e-mail addresses worldwide
2003 July 16 (Wednesday) 20:24 PDT
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MARS ROVER SEEN
After several delays, a Delta II rocket carrying NASA's MER-B
(Opportunity) Mars rover was successfully launched on the evening of
Monday, July 7th from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff
occurred at 20:18 PDT. Several minutes later the rocket entered a
temporary parking orbit. At 21:34 PDT, the rocket's third stage fired,
sending the rover on its way to the Red Planet.
Using some research and a small telescope, reader Randy John saw
Opportunity as it sped away from Earth enroute to Mars. A couple of
days before launch, he logged on to JPL's Horizons web site and had it
predict MER-B's position, in one minute intervals, relative to his
home in Pleasant Hill, California.
About an hour after launch, Randy went outside to his 4-inch
refracting telescope. At first he tried to spot the spacecraft using
the smaller finder scope, but didn't have any luck.
Randy noticed JPL's web site predicted the rover would appear to pass
close to the bright star Altair at 21:54 PDT. Using a low power
(26 mm) eyepiece to obtain a wide field of view, he pointed his
telescope towards Altair and waited.
According to his account, "Sure enough a very slowly moving star
appeared. It was faint (about mag 10 or 11) but easy. I was able to
follow it for about 5 minutes until my house got in the way."
Randy was able to see the spacecraft because his location was in
darkness but the spacecraft was illuminated by the Sun. A noteworthy
feat when you consider MER-B's rather small size and the fact it was
more than 7,000 km from Earth.
Congratulations Randy and thanks for the details of your observation.
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VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
As of 2003 July 14
This schedule is a composite of unclassified information approved for
public release public from government, industry, and other sources. It
is essentially accurate at the time of publication, but may disagree
with other launch schedules (including the official Vandenberg AFB
schedule). This listing does not provide sensitive or potentially
sensitive information on military launches.
Launch
Time/Window
Date (PST/PDT) Vehicle Pad/Silo
-------- ----------- ------------- --------
AUG Unannounced Minuteman III LF-26
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is at least one unarmed
warhead. Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein the
central Pacific. GT-183GB
AUG 12 19:06-20:02 Pegasus XL Offshore
Payload is the Canadian Space Agency's SciSat 1 ozone monitoring
satellite. Pegasus will be air-launched from an L-1011 staged from
Vandenberg AFB
SEP Unannounced Minuteman III LF-10
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is at least one unarmed
warhead. Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the
central Pacific. GT-181GM
SEP 14 09:17-09:27 Titan II SLC-4W
Payload is a DMSP military weather satellite
NOV-DEC Unannounced Atlas II SLC-3E
Payload is a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite(s)
NOV 13 08:44 Delta II SLC-2W
Payload is NASA's Gravity Probe B scientific satellite
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ASTEROID OCCULTATION TOMORROW
Tomorrow night the asteroid Varsavia will occult (pass in front of)
the star SAO 1000819. The following is an edited version of a Sky &
Telescope AstroAlert for Occultations issued by David Dunham:
"We need YOUR help to cover the path for the occultation of 6.4-mag.
SAO 100819 (= HIP 68516) by (1263) Varsavia late Thursday evening,
July 17. The star is less than 4 deg. from Arcturus and bright enough
to observe with good binoculars, although a small telescope is
recommended. This is the brightest star that will be occulted by a
sizeable asteroid in the U.S.A. and southern Canada this year. Please
let me know if you will try to observe the occultation, to help with
locating our mobile stations to avoid your line across the asteroid
and get the best coverage for determining the size and shape of
Varsavia. It would help if mobile observers could suggest locations
from which they might observe, including approximate long. and lat.,
if possible; if I find that they are already very close to someone
else's line, I'll suggest a change.
The occultation will take place shortly after 11 pm PDT July 17 (6h UT
July 18 UT date). Key cities crossed by the almost north-south path
are Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia (just before 11:03 pm);
Seattle, Washington at the eastern edge (11:03 pm); Portland, Oregon;
and Fresno, Bakersfield, Lancaster, and Los Angeles, California (11:04
pm). Observers especially in those areas are encouraged to make a
special effort to observe the occultation, and to get others in their
astronomy clubs to observe it from as many separate locations as
possible. Observers are also encouraged to attempt observations from
cities within the "1-sigma" uncertainty zones where an occultation is
very possible, considering the errors involved; in this zone are Salem
and Eugene, Oregon; Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto, Calif. on the
west side, and Reno, Nevada and Riverside and San Diego, Calif. on the
east side. Detailed path maps are on Steve Preston's Web site at
http://www.asteroidoccultation.com ; the most detailed maps enclose
the nominal updated path with black lines and the wider 1-sigma
uncertainty zone with red lines. The path is 80 km wide and the
1-sigma uncertainty is 62 km (0.77 path-width).
...The Accuweather forecast is encouraging for most locations, only
scattered cirrus from Seattle all the way to Pasadena, Calif., but
more cloudiness is possible from "monsoon" weather from the southeast in the
western Mojave Desert and possibly the San Gabriel and southern Sierra
Nevada Mountains, and marine clouds are likely to affect the southern
part of the Los Angeles area and San Diego by 11 pm.
The star is at J2000 RA 14h 01m 36.8s, Dec. +17 deg. 40' 06", about 3.5
deg. west-southwest of Arcturus and just under 2 deg. east-southeast
from the 3rd-mag. star eta Bootis (Muphrid). The chart by Edwin
Goffin, annotated by David Werner, in the 2003 North American
Asteroidal Occultation supplement to Occultation Newsletter, also
available in the "planetary chart" column in the table of 3rd-quarter
asteroidal occultations on the asteroidal occultation page of the main
IOTA Web site at http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota is good for
locating the star. A central occultation is expected to last just
under 3 seconds. Varsavia, which is the Latin word for Warsaw, is only 16th
mag. so most observers will not see it...."
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TELESCOPE CLINIC THIS FRIDAY
The Ventura County Astronomical Society will hold its monthly meeting
at Vista Fundamental School, 2175 Wisteria, Simi Valley at 7:30 pm.
This month's meeting will be a telescope user's clinic, providing
basic observing information and one-on-one hands on help for new scope
owners. VCAS club member will be available to answer questions about
collimation, telescope building, filters, optics and more.
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SYMBOLS, ACRONYMS, AND ABBREVIATIONS
' Minutes
" Seconds
Dec. Declination. The celestial equivalent of latitude. Used to
locate objects in the sky
deg. Degrees
DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
h Hours
km kilometers
m Minutes
mag Magnitude. A measure of brightness
MER-B Mars Exploration Rover B
mm Millimeter
PDT Pacific Daylight Time
PST Pacific Standard Time
RA Right ascension. The celestial equivalent of longitude. Used
to locate objects in the sky
s Seconds
UT Coordinated Universal Time (also referred to as "Zulu")