Endeavour & ISS over Knoxville

I drove a few miles to Carl Cowan Park this evening, where I figured I'd have a clear-ish horizon and a dark-ish sky to watch the Shuttle & ISS flyover. And, sure enough, I saw both spaceships -- preceded a few minutes earlier by the ATV Jules Verne -- race across the sky. The view of the Shuttle & ISS wasn't as spectacular as when I saw them from Nashville (they were much brighter and more directly overhead in that particular instance), but it was still neat. And I got a video!

Pay no attention to my blithering at the end of the video about how the Shuttle "stayed light longer than I thought it would." I was just a bit confused in real-time. On the video, it's perfectly obvious that the Shuttle faded into shadow when and where you'd expect it to, based on the ISS's behavior moments before.

The more interesting question -- which I don't mention in the video -- is why the Shuttle flared up so bright, brighter even than the ISS, in the final moments before it disappeared into the Earth's shadow. I'm sure there's a good answer to that question, but I don't know what it is.

P.S. The apparent jerky motion of the ATV, Shuttle and ISS is a result of my camcorder's "Super Night Shot" feature. In actuality, orbiting satellites move rather smoothly. :)

P.P.S. The title of this post is technically wrong. The Shuttle and ISS were not directly over Knoxville when I saw them, but rather, over the Memphis area.

Comments

[Joe Loy]

Very Cool. Excellent. :)

But riddle us This: if there were to be scheduled Simultaneously a Shuttle & ISS & ATV flyover, an Iridium flare, a Meteor shower, an Auroral Activity, an eclipse of the Moon & a defunct spysatellite Shootdown, would this portend (a) the reemergence of the Occluded Imam, (b) the Big Rip, or (c) the detonation of your Head? ;)