Monday 15 January 2007

Again Lacrosse 5, and a comet observation in daylight!

A poor evening after a nice day. Alas, late in the afternoon and in the early evening cirrus moved in. This after it had been nice and clear blue skies earlier, allowing a rare view of a daylight comet!

At 14:35 local time (CET) during the clear part of the day, I managed (with difficulty, but certainty) to observe comet C/2006 P1 McNaught with the unaided naked eye in daylight, close to the sun! It was a tiny smudge at a 7-8 o' clock position relative to the sun. Not easy, but once located unmistakable. The sun was covered from direct vision.

Due to the cirrus that came in later today, Lacrosse 5 (05-016A) was the only one of three sats (Lacrosse 2, Lacrosse 5 and USA 193) I tried this evening that was captured. The first point on Lacrosse 5 might be a bit iffy, the second is good I think. delta T is similar to yesterday (+0.2s).

Shortly after this exposure, Lacrosse 5 "disappeared" again. This happened between 17:56:00 and 17:56:30 UTC (I did not see it disappear as I was handling the camera, but when I looked up again after triggering the 2nd image it was gone visually, and it is not visible on the 2nd image either).

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