Hi Kurt, Yeah, that's what I'd heard (3or so in the morning). But we had a similar event at SPOC for the end of the Deep Impact mission and I was surprised at how many showed up out there. So I'm thinking if the LCROSS event is well advertised we could get quite a crowd at the U. And I definitely want to have my eye to an eyepiece at the moment of impact. We were able to see Deep Impact's crunch from a lot further away so (hopefully) LCROSS's end splash will be even easier. patrick On 08 Jun 2009, at 01:43, Canopus56 wrote:
Patrick,
The LCROSS planners are talking 3 or 4 in the morning for Utah. I'll be up but probably looking for a high-speed internet connection to NASA TV. But things change (the target, the impact date, the launch date) with the LCROSS mission planners - almost weekly - and the target and final impact time will not be set until 30 days before impact. (This is intentional - the LCROOS team is going to leverage of the latest imagery and ground-penetrating radar readings from LRO before selecting a final LCROSS impact site.) So, for me its premature to start planning to view it.
On the other hand, four or five days after launch, the LCROSS- Centaur satellite will be doing its gravity assist swing-by the Moon before entering the three or four month cruise orbit phase. Rumor has it that the LCROSS team is planning an internet broadcast of the satellite's on-board camera feed as it swings by 80km above the surface. Keep an eye out for that.
Then there will be public-amateur LCROSS sponsored competion to see who can image the LCROSS-Centaur booster combination in Earth-lunar orbit at 500,000km. That will be ongoing for three months. That is probably the best observing op to organize a local event around - considering SLAS has the big-eye 1 meter Grim to work with.
The JSA's Kayuga satellite is set to impact near southern crater Gill on June 10th but is scheduled to impact at around 18:30UT - night-time over Japan - daytime here.
- Clear Skies - Kurt