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STARDUST Reentry Analysis Page by Jim Albers

Last Updated Mar 27, 2006

Skymap trajectory and star overlay applied to Bruce Fischer Wendover, UT photo.	Red, Green, Blue SRC brightness versus time derived from Bruce Fischer photo. Note how brightness is decreasing with time, at least partly due to increased rate across the image. Clouds cause large brightness decrease from 34-36 seconds and smaller variations later on.	SRC magnitude derived from Bruce Fischer photo corrected for movement and turned into magnitude using a number of stars for calibration. Note how brightness decrease has flattened out. No correction for atmospheric extinction.
Skymap trajectory and star overlay applied to Earl Wilson Lone Pine, CA photo.		SRC magnitude derived from Bruce Fischer photo corrected for movement and turned into magnitude using nearby stars for calibration.
	SRC brightness versus time from Rick Baldridge's second video taken from Red Bluff, CA. Note how SRC is still brighter than Polaris (aUMi) even though the back side of the SRC is being seen at low elevation and long range.	SRC brightness turned into magnitude using Polaris brightness, both with and without correction for atmosphere.
Bryan Murahashi photos overlayed onto Skymap background to show variation over time and elevation and compare to bright star Arcturus (aBoo).

All photos copyright their respective owners. All analysis copyright Jim Albers.