Shenzhou V appeared at ~0 mag, ~70 deg. above the Northern Horizon . It was
moving quickly to the NE. It then passed by the bowl of the Big Dipper and
was glinting on and off. I was thinking, "Hopefully he's not spinning out of
control;" Later I considered that it may only be the way the Sun was
reflecting off the panels. As I think back now, the craft has a period of
about 12 seconds between max brightenings.



Paul Gitto
The Arcturus Observatory (H92)
http://cometman.com


"Stan Jensen" wrote in message
...
Following a tip from Spaceweather.com, I got outside around 7:20am and
found a nice southern horizon.

In the brightening morning twilight, suddenly from just to the west of the
moon came the spacecraft. From my location it was traveling just south of
the moon, just north of Saturn, and travelling east at a high rate of
orbital motion.

The craft was tumbling, and varied in brightness greatly. At times it was
nearly as bright as Jupiter, and other times it was nearly invisible.

Pretty cool.

But does this portend bad weather? You know the old saying.. "Red Skies at
morning..."