Starship Asterisk*

Discovery in Twilight

Explanation: As evening twilight faded on March 7, sky gazers around planet Earth enjoyed a beautiful pairing of young crescent Moon and brilliant planet Jupiter. Along with stars setting in the west, the two bright celestial beacons, Moon above and Jupiter below, leave short trails in this well-planned time exposure, a composite of 54 individual frames each 4 seconds long. On its final flight, the Space Shuttle Discovery and International Space Station form the second close pairing in the night skyscape. Still glinting in the sunlight in low Earth orbit, they gracefully trace overlapping arcs from lower right to upper left. Moon, Jupiter, Discovery, and ISS are reflected in the calm waters of Lake Bakonybél, Hungary. Want to see the sequence of frames as a short youtube video? Check it out here. In the video, the trails of the ISS and Discovery are seen to separate as the pair passes above the Moon.

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This is a lovely image! Ditto the video.

Though I did not have as picturesque a locale, I watched the pair fly by on Tuesday night, first Discovery, and then about a minute behind, the ISS. Both were very bright, and their passage made me think of ships sailing through calm waters.

I saw the ISS/Shuttle double passes on Monday and Tuesday evenings from the eastern USA (southern New Jersey to be specific). Monday, March 7th, was certainly the most spectacular with the spacing between Discovery and the ISS ranging from about 4 to 10 degrees. Unfortunately, today's APOD doesn't really capture the visual grandeur of Monday's pass because the tracks of the two spacecraft are essentially superimposed. The video shows the separation (and eliminates the star trailing), but actually seeing the two bright points of light moving in tandem was better. When I saw them again on Tuesday, they were about 45 degrees apart -- still a fine sight.

Tuesday was the better night for me to see them - and even though I've been able to spot the ISS several times now, (it sounds cheesy but) it gives me chills every time! The video was great, showing the separation.

Awesome image!

cool!

Something that's got me curious...

Why would Discovery be first? Shouldn't we imagine them braking in preparation for return to Earth, rather than speeding up?

-Noel

NoelC wrote:Something that's got me curious...

Why would Discovery be first? Shouldn't we imagine them braking in preparation for return to Earth, rather than speeding up?

Agreed, it seems a bit non-intuitive. But when you brake, you drop into a lower orbit, and a lower orbit is, necessarily, going to have a shorter period. So the shuttle ends up leading the ISS.

Chris Peterson wrote:when you brake, you drop into a lower orbit, and a lower orbit is, necessarily, going to have a shorter period. So the shuttle ends up leading the ISS.

Aha! Makes perfect sense. Thank you.

-Noel