Tom and Amy came over with their wonderful kids. We all got to run and jump and play. We also had tasty pizza. Papa Murphy's really is da bomb (though this one seemed a bit greasier than usual.
After they left the Mrs gave our kids a bath. I put lil A to bed.
I went outside, armed with a list of 10 satellites to look for, around 7:10pm. It was probably in the teens. Luckily, I managed to find a scarf that I've had since I was 10 (it was way too big then, but fits pretty good now). It is a good scarf and it kept my face warm. However, there were some spotty clouds, the moon was fairly bright and the sky was a bit whitewashed, so I only saw one satellite this evening. Glad I saw one 'cause I would have been a bit preturbed to stand outside for a half hour to see nothing.
Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 18-Dec-2010 Saturday
7:35 PM - Cosmos 1125 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-078-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Stela-2M military communications satellite. Of note, the Kosmos-3M rocket has been involved in a few accidents. In 1973 a Kosmos-3M rocket exploded and killed 9 people. In 1976, another Kosmos-3M exploded killing another 9 people. Overall, however, the Kosmos-3M is fairly reliable with 424 successful launches and only 20 failures (a 4.5% failure rate). The first flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in 1967. The most recent flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in April 2010.
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Also, I just read that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away due to multiple sclerosis. RIP.
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