Nasa is asking for photos. The address to send them is: nasamitimages@jsc.nasa.gov I saw this very quickly , and hope it is correct. I am sure they'll need to know location and time as well as details of the image - focal length, exposure, etc. Brent --- Wayne Reese <wreese@hubwest.com> wrote:

I can see what appears to be something on my east most shots, does anyone know how to ask NASA if they want these? Wayne

-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-admin@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jim Gibson Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 2:31 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Shuttle - our expierence

I would like Patrick to respond first but he must be tied up right now. My expierence was as follows. I met Patrick and others at exit 23 outside of St. George about 6:00 AM along with my wife and 4 year old grandson. We went to a good observation point and Patrick and I set up our cameras. There were about 10 others inour group there. Patrick set his up with a telephoto (film) and he suggested that I set mine up wide angle (digital). Patrick kept us informed when to watch for the shuttle. The Shuttle approached where and when he said it would to the West or North West about 7:56 (+ or - a minute). My camera was set at f2.8 open for 8 seconds. I took my first shot. The thing was beautiful, straight as an arrow, obviously high, and moving fast, and way faster than any jet airline I had ever seen. The Shuttle glowed with an indescribable orange glow. By the time the first shot ended I could tell the Shuttle was on top of me so I shot straight up. I touched off the camera the looked up just in time to see a noticeable increase in glow, not only in brightness but also in width of the contrail. Later, Patrick referred to the event as a flare. The shot ended and I had to turn the camera 180 degrees, pointed towards the eastern horizon and shot off another picture. The whole time my wife was using my Galileo binoculars 15X70s. Sheila, my wife, saw the bottom of the space shuttle with 15x Binos at approximately 300,000 feet and could see swirls of flames or balls of heat coming from off the tiles. She would compare it to when someone sucks on a cigarette the end glows and there are sparklies and it keeps getting brighter as they suck. While she was watching, she said, "I see flames." We understand that this was our first experience observing the re-entry; we are inexperienced and were unalarmed at the site. Sheila wants to be cautious because they weren't like licking flames, just a growing brighter glow like a cigarette. We don't know if what we saw was normal. She could not see the individual tiles but she could see a lot of dynamic activity or movement on the bottom (don't blow this out of proportion, maybe normal). She noticed this at about the 10 o'clock position to the 12 o'clock position relative to our location. She didn't see anything fall or any debris. She did NOT notice the flair per se that I photographed. Jim Gibson

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Dear Friends, I have three matters I'd like to mention. 1. Would anyone care to read the unedited (i.e., longer) version of my story about watching the shuttle? 2. Does any member of this list live in St. George who could give me a hand? Or is anyone from our area traveling to that region soon? The reason I ask is that when Dave Dunn drove back to tell me about the shuttle disaster, I was so shocked and saddened that I forgot to finish packing my gear. I left for Salt Lake City immediately, leaving a cloth carryall behind. It held some astronomy magazines, a couple of star handbook, my telescope manual and some other items. If anyone from that area wanted to go to the abandoned landing field where we spent the night, retrieve my bag and send it to me, I would be overjoyed - glad to pay any gas and mailing expenses. 3. Anyone want to see views of the folks at the landing strip after the shuttle passed, or a shot I took of Saturn before I hit the sack that night, or sunrise the morning of the shuttle? If so, I could send along jpgs. Thanks very much, Joe Bauman