jackrabbit, you got it right the first time. Satellites are visible when they are illuminated by sunlight but the observer on the ground is in darkness. Unless you get an Iridium flare, which can be seen in daylight. Those are also reflected sunlight.
No light bulb on a spacecraft can be seen.
Hmmm. Noted. I’ll reread the original story (if I can find it).
Not only are they illuminated by the sun, but often when you’re watching one of them, they move into the shadow and disappear - they sort of blink out. It’s cool to see. That’s also the reason that you see them just before dawn and just after sundown, but you can’t see one around midnight. OTOH, I’ve often wondered why, if we can see license plates from spy satellite-based scopes, why we never see pictures of the shuttle from earth. Doesn’t anyone follow them with scopes, or do they move too fast to track?
I’m gonna bump the thread, 'cuz I’m also a bit curious about the answer to CC’s last question.
To expand it a bit: has anyone successfully imaged from the ground a reasonly good pic of a man-made object in space? The shuttle? Mir? Apollo en route to the moon?
I’d bet the answer is a combo of ‘it moves to fast’ and ‘its too damned small’ (in the Apollo btw. Earth & Moon case), but I’m still curious.
I made my last post in haste, since I knew the answer (and found the link) quickly.
Anyway, I remember reading (somewhere…) about an amateur astronomer who saw a blip of light a day or two after an Apollo launch that was, in fact, the spaceship travelling between the Earth and the Moon. I don’t believe it was photographed, however.
Yep, they are able to photograph at least some of the objects in orbit. Here’s a picture of the shuttle docked to the ISS. It’s pretty grainy, but you can make out what they are.
Eric
