I had to drive through wind, then rain and then snow (Kurt, you called that right) before finally breaking out of the weather about 60 km west of my house. The rest of the ~150 km journey to Wendover was under increasingly clear skies. Several people were already at the Wendover airport when I arrived about 1 hour before Stardust was scheduled to arrive. I was surprised at the large number of OASers there and more surprised to learn that even more OASers were in the area, just not at the airport. Very few SLASers, though. There was a very opaque cloud bank to the west that was moving slowly our way and by the time Stardust neared, the clouds were up to about 25 degrees in the western sky. At about 2:58 an incredibly bright light exploded from behind the approaching cloud bank trailing a pencil thin purplish/pinkish ion train. It was beautiful! And the crowd erupted. It passed high in the southern sky and was noticeably dimming as the spacecraft slowed and moved to where we were seeing it from the rear. It then disappeared into the a line of clouds high in the SE and we did not see it come out the other side. About 2.5 minutes later, as we all stood trying to be quiet, a surprisingly loud sonic boom was heard (actually it sounded like two booms very close together) and the crowd erupted into 2 chants of "Welcome Home Stardust". All in all, it was a great time. An impressive light and sound show to be sure but it was also nice to know that that we had just witnessed history. Print media was well represented so look for coverage in the D. News (of course our own Joe Bauman was there), Tribune and the Tooele Transcript. Several of the still photographers got excellent pictures and I've arranged for many of them to email some of their choice shots which I'll post to the web as soon as I get them. I'll include the URL in News. KSL channel 5 got some good video. Look for that on tonight's (Sunday) Eyewitness News. The NBC network was represented so there's a possibility our merry band of crazies may be on tonight's (Sunday) NBC Nightly News (KSL in Utah) and MSNBC. What a night!!! Patrick
How much did you come home with? Quoting Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net>:
I had to drive through wind, then rain and then snow (Kurt, you called that right) before finally breaking out of the weather about 60 km west of my house. The rest of the ~150 km journey to Wendover was under increasingly clear skies.
Several people were already at the Wendover airport when I arrived about 1 hour before Stardust was scheduled to arrive. I was surprised at the large number of OASers there and more surprised to learn that even more OASers were in the area, just not at the airport. Very few SLASers, though.
There was a very opaque cloud bank to the west that was moving slowly our way and by the time Stardust neared, the clouds were up to about 25 degrees in the western sky.
At about 2:58 an incredibly bright light exploded from behind the approaching cloud bank trailing a pencil thin purplish/pinkish ion train.
It was beautiful! And the crowd erupted.
It passed high in the southern sky and was noticeably dimming as the spacecraft slowed and moved to where we were seeing it from the rear.
It then disappeared into the a line of clouds high in the SE and we did not see it come out the other side.
About 2.5 minutes later, as we all stood trying to be quiet, a surprisingly loud sonic boom was heard (actually it sounded like two booms very close together) and the crowd erupted into 2 chants of "Welcome Home Stardust".
All in all, it was a great time. An impressive light and sound show to be sure but it was also nice to know that that we had just witnessed history.
Print media was well represented so look for coverage in the D. News (of course our own Joe Bauman was there), Tribune and the Tooele Transcript.
Several of the still photographers got excellent pictures and I've arranged for many of them to email some of their choice shots which I'll post to the web as soon as I get them. I'll include the URL in News.
KSL channel 5 got some good video. Look for that on tonight's (Sunday) Eyewitness News.
The NBC network was represented so there's a possibility our merry band of crazies may be on tonight's (Sunday) NBC Nightly News (KSL in Utah) and MSNBC.
What a night!!!
Patrick
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diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
How much did you come home with? Everything my eyes could hold!
BTW, talk about bright, at one point it passed behind a thin band of cloud and not only could it be seen through the cloud but it actually lit up the cloud. Wild! Ok, guess I'd best turn in now. Patrick
Here is a link to the SLTribune article which quotes Patrick: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3404698 Mike Chances are high that one or more of the foregoing statements was intended as humor by an individual with little to no discernible sense of humor. No offense was intended to any person, animal, religion, political party, spirit, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, plant, fungus or other as-of-yet-to-be-discovered form of life or death. If you find any statement to be offensive, I sincerely apologize and humbly beg for your forgiveness. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+mwkwan=sisna.com@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+mwkwan=sisna.com@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 8:40 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow! diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
How much did you come home with? Everything my eyes could hold!
BTW, talk about bright, at one point it passed behind a thin band of cloud and not only could it be seen through the cloud but it actually lit up the cloud. Wild! Ok, guess I'd best turn in now. Patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
participants (3)
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diveboss＠xmission.com -
Michael Kwan -
Patrick Wiggins