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MARS ROVER SEEN

After several delays, a Delta II rocket carrying NASA's MER-B (Opportunity) Mars rover was successfully launched on the evening of Monday, July 7th from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff occurred at 20:18 PDT. Several minutes later the rocket entered a temporary parking orbit. At 21:34 PDT, the rocket's third stage fired, sending the rover on its way to the Red Planet.

Using some research and a small telescope, reader Randy John saw Opportunity as it sped away from Earth enroute to Mars. A couple of days before launch, he logged on to JPL's Horizons web site and had it predict MER-B's position, in one minute intervals, relative to his
home in Pleasant Hill, California.

About an hour after launch, Randy went outside to his 4-inch refracting telescope. At first he tried to spot the spacecraft using the smaller finder scope, but didn't have any luck.

Randy noticed JPL's web site predicted the rover would appear to pass close to the bright star Altair at 21:54 PDT. Using a low power (26 mm) eyepiece to obtain a wide field of view, he pointed his telescope towards Altair and waited.

According to his account, "Sure enough a very slowly moving star appeared. It was faint (about mag 10 or 11) but easy. I was able to follow it for about 5 minutes until my house got in the way."

Randy was able to see the spacecraft because his location was in darkness but the spacecraft was illuminated by the Sun. A noteworthy feat when you consider MER-B's rather small size and the fact it was more than 7,000 km from Earth.

Congratulations Randy and thanks for the details of your observation.