Sunnyvale, CA
high thin clouds. two observers.
10:43:55PDT first visible. about 10 seconds later, as
bright as 'mirphak':
(capella way up there ^^^ )
*
X <---- here
* <---- mirphak?
------> NORTH
Visible for about 25 seconds, and then another 15 seconds
via binoculars. Slight motion in the '5 o-clock' direction on
the chart above... Peak brightness
hope this helps.
Italy
From TIRGO we could not observe the sunglint (below the horizon)
but we got some nice infrared images of the probe a few hours before.
I just assembled them in a nice movie that shows the probe sweeping
rapidly through a field of stars. It's on
this site.
cheers, Andrea
Arizona:
Thanks to your ephemeris, we did get NEAR on tape with our 14" scope/image
intensifier.
A couple of technical glitches resulted in not much voiceover, but the WWV
was on and when we go over it, we'll be able to coordinate the event/time
pretty well.
One of the tech problems was that we ran out of travel on the tension arm,
so had to track by hand the latter part of the video--including the flash.
Have a total of 18-20 minutes, including about 20 seconds of flare.
Starfield is in pretty good detail, also.
If this will do you some good, Professor M. said he would be glad to
send you the tape.
...
Thanks again for all your trouble, it was an outstanding experience. (Tried
a shot with my 135mm lens in all the hubbub, hope it came out).
Tjm
Oahu, HI:
I and a group of about 40 others in my astronomy class saw it right at the
scheduled time from Sandy Beach, a beach near the south-eastern tip of Oahu, Hawaii.
It was easily visible, but not a bright as Capella.
I took a picture, but have not yet had the film developed.
Do you know if anyone is collecting such results?
Sam
Clayton ,CA:
I viewed " sunglint " from ( about 40 miles east of
San Francisco) using binoculars thru high clouds. Lasted a little over
30 seconds.Got almost as bright as Mirphak. Right where you guys said it
would be.
Mike H.
Austin, TX:
Dave - Thanks for the great directions for the flyby.
It came into view [here] about 12:26AM(in my front yard!).
I was elated to see it and see a part of history in the making. Just about
as great as seeing a comet for the first time.
I was using a great pair of binoculars. Even with the Street lights and
the clouds that were moving in it was a spectacular sight.
Thanks again for the experience and the directions and the web sight.
Jim S.
Honolulu, HI:
Thought I'd let you know that I did see NEAR from here in Honolulu, but
it was not NEARly as bright as expectations. I had less than favorable
conditions since the forecast was for rain I looked out of my bedroom
window through a favorable hole in the clouds. I'm guessing that it was
about mag. 3 or so and it came on for a few seconds and then off and
then on for several more seconds and finally faded away.
I'm wondering if we Honolulu viewers were the last humans to ever see
NEAR ;-)
Peter
San Leandro, CA:
Yep, NEAR was no rival of Capella, that's for sure. But even with thin
wisps of obstructing cloud, a few of us at Oakand's Chabot Observatory
watched it cruise through Perseus. It peaked slightly brighter than Psi
Persei, a tad fainter than Delta Persei -- perhaps about magnitude 3.2,
or thereabouts. We even recorded it with a video camera mounted at prime
focus on an 8-inch f1.5 Schmidt telescope, a single frame of which we've
posted to this Web site
(Okay, so it ain't in the Ansel Adams category of photographic grandeur,)
but we're jazzed about it.)
An unexpected aspect of this apparition was seeing NEAR long after
the predicted 30-second time period. In fact, the spacecraft was
detectable on our video screen for a full two minutes after the prime
glint time, glowing at about 8th magnitude. It even brightened just
slightly for a second or two, right about when the solar reflection
was being slewed from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii.
All in all, this was kinda fun. Why don't we urge NASA to make such
stunts standard operating procedure in all future near-Earth flybys of
solar-panel-equipped spacecraft?
M. Gingrich
Kirmser-Wakabayashi Observatory
James McGaha and I successfully video recorded NEAR sunglint. Rough
estimate is that it got as bright as delta Perseus. We followed it
with the 16 inch for over 10 minutes at approx 200X. f/15 cass focus!
James was looking during the brightening. We video recorded using
a GBC with a 16mm f/1.4 lens. Are you interested in any of this data,
copy of tape etc?
Derald N.
Los Alamos, NM
For what it's worth, here's a brief observation note on the NEAR sunglint,
as observsed fromLos Alamos, NM (35 degrees 52.5' N, 106.3 degrees W).
I saw the flash at 11:27:08 MST ,based on a watch set to WWV. Uncertainty
is +/- 2 seconds for my own reaction time. The glint was very brief, about
1-2 seconds, but quite bright -- 1st magnitude or brighter. Sorry, no
video. Thanks for the show.
Steve,
Thanks for your message. It is very interesting, since most
observers reported a fainter glint, at mag. 3.0 to 2.5, but lasting longer,
around 20 seconds. One observer, in Fillmore, CA, reported it at
mag. 2.0 to 1.5. We will have to look in the S/C attitude records to see
what it was doing at 6:27:08 U.T.
David Dunham
Novato, CA
I saw it last night at 10:46 p.m. local time
- just where you said it would be. Incredible !!!!
It was very, very fast - I was
facing norhtwest and it came "over the top" and went down in the northwest.
Very bright - almost a flash. THANKS !!!
Ron
Reply to Novato,CA:
[This observation] was probably a meteor. I saw
NEAR go through Pereus from my home in Palo Alto (near San Fransisco). It
was moving slowly and it was not very bright. About a minute later a BRIGHT
meteor flashed overhead.
I am on a SF bay area astronomical mailing list and quite a few people saw
both NEAR and the meteor.
Hope this is helpful
Leonard T.
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