New Analysis Video of the STS-75 Tether Incident

If we're talking about specular reflection, it would be practically invisible at most aspect angles and then glint occasionally if at all viewed from one observation site.

The tether was uniformly bright as it crossed the whole sky. I watched it several times.

Dang. Real-world experience really does get in the way of fancy theories.

But then, so does documented evidence -- and I gotta spend some time digesting what that Execute Package is telling us.

reply to post by JimOberg


I know what you mean.

FES, sounds like a long shot, but should be considered.

possible reason the tether "broke" ?

A pinch is the compression of an electrically conducting filament by magnetic forces. The conductor is usually a plasma,

en.wikipedia.org...

to finish to clarify this earlier issue...

Originally posted by easynow
Bokeh Critter ! LOL

Originally posted by mcrom901

loool... check the clip easynow just posted.... the 'critter' seems to disappear once near the fov of the astronaut......

Looling and looling.


As Armap explained, the fainter "glowing donut" is masked by the brighter parts of the shuttle, therefore, the "donut" is very easy to be seen on a black background, the distant sky.

But, looking with great attention, will reveal the truth: the "glowing donut" is something small, moving CLOSER than the shuttle parts, in front of it, and is close enough to appear..guess... defocused.

So, we see BOKEH made by an arbitrary small particle of debris, which while thumbling, reflect more or less light, therefore is changing its brightness while moving.

Look for the entire picture (contrast enhanced):



With blue arrows, i marked the positions when the particle's brightness is at its peak, therefore easier visible, or just barely visible when overlayed to that bright body of the shuttle.


You can look again at the two enough evident clues, exactly in the direction, path and moments needed:

something white overlayed at frames 33,34:




and

something white overlayed at frames 41,42:



unfortunatelly, there is a little quality loss when making these GIF animations (limit to 256 colors), but, i think is not so hard to see.






[edit on 14/12/09 by depthoffield]

reply to post by depthoffield


good work but the animated gifs are terrible and it doesn't prove what the object is






[edit on 14-12-2009 by easynow]

reply to post by depthoffield


I don't see what the heck you're trying to point to.

Big difference from analyzing videos with CLEAR objects akin to fish swimming in a tank.

This is hardly the same.

But Good work though.

reply to post by Majorion

Originally posted by Majorion
reply to post by depthoffield

 

I don't see what the heck you're trying to point to.
But Good work though.

Of course he's pointing to the object as it moves, but I agree it's hard to see in the GIF, so DOF must be right that the GIF rendering process impairs the objects visibility because it is more visible in the original video. I have a hard time seeing it in many frames in the GIF but this is true to a lesser degree even in the original video. But in frames 33 and 41 there is something visible. And the timing of the motion through that field of view suggests the light spots in those two frames aren't random noise in the camera but rather it is consistent with the object's earlier motion.

I'm wondering if the object might have an oblong shape and is tumbling? If so that might explain why it reflects more light at times and less light at other times, making what appears to be a "flashing" effect.

Yikes ! more UFO's !!!



sorry dof no bokeh here for you

Re the earlier claim how Paul Maley supposedly was able to see the tether in Earth's shadow due to plasma glow -- as part of an argument for plasma effects being responsible for some part of the STS-75 video...

... shocker, but Maley knows nothing about such a claim, and denies it.

As I said, how startling is THAT??

From: PAUL MALEY
To: James Oberg
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: observing TSS-1 in shadow


Jim, that is NOT true since there would have to be a source of illumination. Dont know where you got this information but I cannot recall anything even close to this. Now, I have observed the Shuttle in the shadow but it was done when the payload bay was facing down and the lights on in the bay...

Paul

Paul D. Maley

29.6049N, 95.1069W, alt.6m


--- On Mon, 12/14/09, James Oberg wrote:
From: James Oberg
Subject: observing TSS-1 in shadow
To: "PAUL MALEY"
Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 9:17 AM


Paul, somebody has quoted me a report that you described
seeing TSS-1 while it was in shadow. I don't see any ref to
this on your www.eclipsetours.com... page.

Can you elaborate, please? How was the tether being illuminated?

Thanks!

Jim o

reply to post by JimOberg

Dont know where you got this information

Paul, somebody has quoted me a report that you described
seeing TSS-1 while it was in shadow.

Jim , i have to ask,

why did you not tell this person the source of the quote ?

i find that a bit strange. if somebody sent me an email asking me about something and told me i was quoted from some website , the first thing i would want to know is who and what website was quoting me ?

i'm not implying anything funny going on , i am just finding this to be a strange activity that you didn't tell him where the quote came from. something i wouldn't expect in an email exchange like that. am i missing something ?

reply to post by JimOberg

Thanks for the information Jim.

I emailed the webmaster of the site that posted that claim satobs.org to ask what the source is. That should prove interesting. I noticed they do cite some sources for other statements but not for that one. If they don't have a source, maybe they will remove the false claim.

I too was puzzled by that, but if he never said that, it's a little less mysterious.

Originally posted by JimOberg
How was the tether being illuminated?

you should check the data......

Originally posted by mcrom901
reply to post by Phage

 

The ionosphere is the outermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere where solar ultraviolet light knocks electrons off of atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. This effectively turns the ionosphere into a mirror of varying shape and reflectivity in parts of the radio spectrum. This is why radio reception changes at night, and why some stations can be heard far outside their normal broadcast areas, even halfway around the world.

Another part of the PEST experiment will be checking out an oddity noted during the second Tethered Satellite System flight. "We noticed something strange in the characteristics of the RM400 conducting thermal coating used on the tethered satellite," Stone explained. "The data suggested tremendous emissions of secondary electrons due to particle bombardment or solar ultraviolet or both. We had no reason to suppose that the RM400 coating would behave in this way before the TSS mission."

science.nasa.gov...

i hope now you will not be showing emails denying these......

Originally posted by mcrom901

The principal surprise in these results was that the broken end of the tether could support such high currents with only a few short strands of copper wire biased negative to attract ions. Theoretical analysis of possible current enhancement mechanisms based on an assumption of steady state current continuity reveals that only a gas enhanced electrical discharge, providing an electron emission source, was plausible. Ground plasma chamber tests are reported which confirm this analysis and thoroughly demonstrate the initial failure. The TSS-1R results thus represent the highest electron current emission from a neutral plasma source yet demonstrated into a space plasma.

TSS-1R Large Current Response Using a Neutral Gas Discharge Electron Emission Source

reply to post by mcrom901

Since they are talking about solar ultraviolet light or particle bombardment this must have been occurring on the dayside. According to the reply to the inquiry in satobs, the brightness of the tether was pretty much as it should have been, without any other help.

How does a short lived (75 sec) current flow at the broken end of the tether indicate that the entire tether was self illuminated?


[edit on 12/15/2009 by Phage]

Just wanted to say that I have been following this thread for quite a while now.

I think this is the best thread going on ATS right now.

Unfortunately, this stuff is beyond my expertise so I will just continue to observe.

Thank you to:
mccrom901
zorgon
easynow
poet1b
depthoffield
phage
jimoberg
arbitageur
and everyone else.

This thread is why i come to this site.



[edit on 12/15/2009 by theBLESSINGofVISION]

reply to post by Phage


are you suggesting that observed 2.55 mm "neon" tether which was observed from the ground was due to "overexposure and bleeding to adjacent pixels"?

Originally posted by Phage
How does a short lived (75 sec) current flow at the broken end of the tether indicate that the entire tether was self illuminated?

i guess you are mixing up the time-frames from the experiment itself....

reply to post by mcrom901

No.
You just failed to provide this part of the external quote:

Even more remarkably, as the tether failure point entered into the ambient plasma, the tether current increased to 1.1 A and maintained this level even after the break for over 75 seconds.

Source

[edit on 12/15/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by mcrom901

No.
Not the ground observations. Just the video. Low light cameras oversaturate, not so much the human eye.

>Question #2: How is it that we have been able to see something only
>0.1 inch wide at ranges in the hundreds of miles?

The resolution of the unaided eye is about 3 arcmin. Imagine two light
sources of the same total intensity, say Jupiter and a bright star. At the
naked-eye level, neither is resolved, both being smaller than 3' diameter,
but in a telescope, Jupiter IS resolved. So in other words, an object is seen
because it emits or reflects light, independent of whether it is of sufficient
angular diameter to be resolved.

www.satobs.org...

reply to post by Phage


it still says "over" 75 seconds..... and that too is about the increased power.... not the general electricity conduct.....

Electric field fluctuations have been observed by satellites, such as DE-2. They were observed simultaneously in the both magnetic conjugate points simultaneously. The direction of their Poynting flux indicate they are generated in the ionosphere, and transmitted along the field line to the conjugate ionosphere.

On the Evolution Process of the Midlatitude Electric Field Fluctuations

how about....

We present the results of a preliminary analysis of the RETE wave observations during the deployed phase of the TSS-1R mission. In particular, we examine the part of the mission characterized by appreciable satellite charging, starting approximately with the first IV24 operating cycle. The electric and magnetic wave measurements are made in the frequency range from 180 Hz to 12 MHz; this range includes most of the important ionospheric plasma characteristicfrequencies. The spectrograms show a strong correlation between the tether current and the spectral power density, both electric and magnetic. Wave activity is noticed in the whole of the frequency range starting from few hundreds of Hz up to about 6 MHz; the latter corresponds approximately to the electron plasma frequency. Wave excitation may play an important role in satellite current collection from the ionospheric plasma since it could randomize the electron motion and decrease the channelling effect of the terrestrial magnetic field. In other words, plasma wave turbulence may help explain the isotropisation of the electron current collection which is suggested by comparison of the measured satellite current-voltage characteristic with the predictions made by isotropic and anisotropic models.

RETE Wave Receiver: Electric and Magnetic Wave Activity in the Satellite Environment During the Deployed Phase of the TSS-1R Mission

more to follow......


[edit on 15/12/09 by mcrom901]

reply to post by mcrom901

But it doesn't say 76.

Yes, the tether generated electricity, that's what it was supposed to do. They found that power generated by the tether responded to fluctuations in the ionosphere. What does that have to do with visible light?

Do you understand anything you're posting or are you just throwing stuff out there hoping something will stick?

Strangely familiar.