"Jack L. Metcalfe" wrote in message
...
Around 8:57 PM EDT, 15 degrees due east from Arcturus I saw a fairly
bright cloud-like glow drifting slowly northeast. It wasn't a cloud,
it was perfectly clear otherwise. The glow had a spiked point that
stayed farly much intact until I lost it after Moonrise. It was about
30' in size when first observed & expanded to about 1 degree before
fading.

This was observed from Central Kentucky around 37 34 North & 84 36
West. Did anybody else catch this?

This was related to this evening's launch of NROL-1 from Cape Canaveral, on
an Atlas 2AS rocket. Spaceflight Now has the ground track:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/...0824track.html

The cloud visible over North America was the result of the Centaur's venting
of excess propellant.

I posted my observation report to SeeSat-L:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0341.html

As have several other observers:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0335.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0336.html

http://satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2004/0339.html

Ted Molczan