I Nearly Had a Heart Attack

I was out viewing Saturn a few days ago. Had her perfectly centered in my
FOV and was enjoying the view when a commercial aircraft flew squarely
through the field of view. I could see the entire aircraft. I thought my
heart was going to jump out of my chest and run down the street.

--
BV.
www.iheartmypond.com

Heck, living next door to Edwards AFB and with all the airlines routes
that pass overhead in this area, I'd feel left out if I didn't get at
lest ONE plane a night. The other night I had a Sat. pass right threw
Jupiter.


--
Dragons Must Fly when Thread's in the Sky

www.starlords.org

"BenignVanilla" wrote in message
...
I was out viewing Saturn a few days ago. Had her perfectly centered
in my
FOV and was enjoying the view when a commercial aircraft flew
squarely
through the field of view. I could see the entire aircraft. I
thought my
heart was going to jump out of my chest and run down the street.

--
BV.
www.iheartmypond.com

"Starlord" wrote in message
...
Heck, living next door to Edwards AFB and with all the airlines routes
that pass overhead in this area, I'd feel left out if I didn't get at
lest ONE plane a night. The other night I had a Sat. pass right threw
Jupiter.
snip

I've seen plenty of sats...this was my first encounter with a FOV filling
aircraft. LOL.

BV.

John Steinberg mused:

Since we all know light travels a lot faster than sound


Uhhh. . .I thought that had to do with how loud the boss is screaming ;o)

---
Martin

It's even better when the angle is just right, placing the FOV directly in
the landing path, so that the field gets inexplicably brighter, then WHAM!

Landing lights are no fun on dark-adapted eyes.

Rob
37.54 N
121.98 W

"BenignVanilla" wrote in message
...
I was out viewing Saturn a few days ago. Had her perfectly centered in my
FOV and was enjoying the view when a commercial aircraft flew squarely
through the field of view. I could see the entire aircraft. I thought my
heart was going to jump out of my chest and run down the street.

--
BV.
www.iheartmypond.com





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BenignVanilla wrote:

I was out viewing Saturn a few days ago. Had her perfectly centered in my
FOV and was enjoying the view when a commercial aircraft flew squarely
through the field of view. I could see the entire aircraft. I thought my
heart was going to jump out of my chest and run down the street.

This reminds me of a beautiful experience I had last autumn.

The night was very clear, and I was looking at the Moon at
40x (I guess), so it almost filled the FOV. Suddenly a
small black silhouette of a comersial airliner cruising at
high altitude appeared and crossed the Moon's face.

"Wow!" I said to myself, but then came the really cool stuff:

The plane left no condensation trail, just a track of turbulent
air that lasted for a couple more seconds. After this
disappeared, I noticed a couple of very slow-moving waves, just
like the "V" made by a boat in water. The overall impression
was that I was looking at the Moon's reflection in a pond,
watching those waves slowly diverge. It was really beautifull!

I guess that was the only time I've seen wing-tip vortices of
an airplane so clearly.

Regards,

- Alex

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:11:18 -0500, "BenignVanilla"
wrote:


"Starlord" wrote in message
...
Heck, living next door to Edwards AFB and with all the airlines routes
that pass overhead in this area, I'd feel left out if I didn't get at
lest ONE plane a night. The other night I had a Sat. pass right threw
Jupiter.
snip

I've seen plenty of sats...this was my first encounter with a FOV filling
aircraft. LOL.

BV.


Late last fall I was intently trying to tease detail out of a galaxy
when a jet flew smack through the center of the field at fairly high
mag. "Holy crap!!!" pretty well sums up my reaction. My heart was
pounding for more than a few seconds.

Nova Scotia is on the flight path for jets going to/coming from
Europe. We get, on average, about 600+ jets a day flying overhead. On
any given evening with clear horizons, there are always 5-7 jets
visible in the sky. I recall quite vividly that in the days following
9/11, their absence was very disconcerting.

Cheers,

- Craig

Heh heh. Last Fall I was at a star party and another guy and I happened
to be observing the moon when a jumbo jet streaked directly in front of
it. We were about 20 feet away from each other, with a bunch of other
people around, and both of us uttered "(identical expletive deleted)" at
exactly the same time. We looked at each other and cracked up.

Chris

BenignVanilla wrote:

I was out viewing Saturn a few days ago. Had her perfectly centered in my
FOV and was enjoying the view when a commercial aircraft flew squarely
through the field of view. I could see the entire aircraft. I thought my
heart was going to jump out of my chest and run down the street.

--
BV.
www.iheartmypond.com

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 02:19:32 GMT, Craig Levine
wrote:

Late last fall I was intently trying to tease detail out of a galaxy
when a jet flew smack through the center of the field at fairly high
mag. "Holy crap!!!" pretty well sums up my reaction. My heart was
pounding for more than a few seconds.

More than my heart was pounding, after I suffered a firefly down the
tube. :-)

--------------
Beady's Corollary to Occam's Razor: "The likeliest explanation of any phenomenon is almost always the most boring one imaginable."


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"hbb2102" wrote in message
news:j_G5c.25470$J05.170664@attbi_s01...
It's even better when the angle is just right, placing the FOV directly in
the landing path, so that the field gets inexplicably brighter, then WHAM!

Landing lights are no fun on dark-adapted eyes.

Similar story: The club was at the dark site. One guy is trying to get every
last detail out of a DSO. A small plane (like a Cessna 172) is flying over
at a typical cruising altitude. At this dark site, the strobe on the belly
of the plane is annoying. You could see the flashes lighting up the ground.
Mr. DSO is muttering about the strobe but continues to peer.

Not only does the plane cross his FOV, but the strobe fires right then. I
didn't see it, but somebody near said that he saw the flash light up the
guy's eye. Ouch!

Craig in Tampa