Report on Shuttle and Station

[golux_org]

Due to rain in Florida, the shuttle is staying in space an extra day. This means we'll have another evening overflight of Boston, with shuttle and station moving together across the night sky. The pass is 9:40 to 9:44 pm, fairly low (about 25 degrees elevation) in the southwest. It won't be as spectacular as last night's overhead flyover - but

Comments

[cathijosephine]

Awesome photo!

[golux_org]

Thanks :)

[mattlistener]

Two clear lines, the one on the right being brighter than the one on the left. Neat.

They are not quite parallel -- the one on the right is closer to horizontal.

[golux_org]

In the sky, the scene was rotated 90 degrees - the left side of the image was higher in the sky, and the right side was lower near the ground. I rotated the image so it would fit better in LJ format. I suspect the effect you're seeing is due to distortion when reproducing a 3-D environment onto a 2-D image plane.

Another neat effect I can see: as these spacecraft moved across the sky, the angular speed changed - faster when moving across the line of sight and nearby (high in the sky), slower when moving along the line of sight and farther away (near the ground). I can see this effect in the photos, the space station trail (right side of image) is shorter than the shuttle trail for this reason.