[ATMoB-discuss] shuttle launch tonight - but before sunset

[George Roberts]

I was very excited to learn there is a shuttle launch tonight 
and indeed it will be going north bound (sometimes it heads 
south-west from Florida).  However, it is scheduled to launch 
at 6:36pm and will be "visible" from Massachusetts about 9 
minutes later.  Unfortunately it will still be quite bright out at 
that time as sunset isn't until something like 8pm.  But if you 
want to try, it is possible to maybe get a glance if the skies 
are very very clear to the east - the shuttle will only be a white
dot on a light blue background about 5 degrees above the horizon.
I doubt it will be visible naked eye but probably with binocs.

Here's a link showing the ground track of the ISS on that pass.
The shuttle will move pretty much over the same path but 
about 5-15 minutes later (it starts out 6 minutes late and ends
up even later because it takes the shuttle 9 minutes to get up to
speed).

http://129.247.247.254/gtrack.asp?date=39302.94&lat=42.3&lng=-71.3&alt=0&loc=Wellesley&TZ=EST&satid=25544

- George Roberts