New Analysis of the STS-75 Tether Incident -2010 (my research)

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by mcrom901
jim, any news?

I've gotten blown off by the PAO -- will need to unlimber the FOIA guns.

i seriously don't know what to say to that....

despite presenting to you the relevant data.....

Originally posted by mcrom901
reply to post by JimOberg

 

ntrs.nasa.gov...

holimoli jim... what are you on about

Well, since my last debunking bonus check has been held up in the mail since 1998, I've had to get a real job to eat.

Seriously, I want to dig this out but frankly the priority on my list of 'space puzzles' isn't as high as I'm sure you think it deserves.

Admittedly, it would be higher if I didn't expect, based on past performance, that any results I come up with wouldn't be knee-jerk blown off like other research -- most notably on STS-48 and STS-80 pseudo-UFO-videos -- has been.

Since there is a near-infinite catalog of youtube 'space UFO' videos, it's an endless treadmill of frustrations trying to repeatedly respond to the "OK, yes, but what about THIS one?" mantra.

But I did promise -- and you are justified in reminding me.

reply to post by JimOberg


jeeeez jim... i'm not reminding you to do anything... in fact, quite to the contrary, pointing you to the data in question which had already been obtained from the a/m nasa report, which you constantly seem to ignore... as such there is NO i repeat NO need for any foia requests here...

Originally posted by mcrom901

Originally posted by JimOberg
I'm more interested in the TOPPING FES STARTUP item, and at what time it actually occurred. That's what I'm trying to wring out of PAO -- but he needs access to the FAO logs.

and what happens next..... if it will be confirmed to have actually occurred around the mentioned MET D07/11:45

just to reiterate.... as mentioned in said report.... the flash evaporator system water dump was initiated @ 062:08:04 gmt i.e. 08:11:46 MET



the tether video was captured @ 061:05:30 GMT

Originally posted by mcrom901
reply to post by JimOberg

 

jeeeez jim... i'm not reminding you to do anything... in fact, quite to the contrary, pointing you to the data in question which had already been obtained from the a/m nasa report, which you constantly seem to ignore... as such there is NO i repeat NO need for any foia requests here...

hey jim... did you miss this?

furthermore... in regards to the chaotic trajectory deviations of sub objects, it is generally believed that said flightpath changes are simply due to plumes from the thruster firings....

anywho... according to the flight plan, the maneuver activity was @ 7/2:25

whereas... the footage was captured around met 7/8:53

vector aftereffects from +6 hrs

Originally posted by mcrom901
according to the flight plan, the maneuver activity was @ 7/2:25

whereas... the footage was captured around met 7/8:53

just like the actual fes data.... this one is way off too.....





ntrs.nasa.gov...


there you go jim.... a further discount of 2hrs for you @ met 7/00:25 - prcs4 which brings up the difference to a sheer +8 hours

anyways... as i'm quite sure you'll ignore responding to this as well... thought of plugging one of your posts here....

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by wmd_2008a very very small force may be all thats required to change direction/speed etc.

Yes but unless you wish to challenge the laws of physics, you need to explain why the objects move in curved trajectories. In space where there is no air drag, objects move in a vector when force is applied so they would make angular turns

In order for them to exhibit the curving maneuvers we see they would need a constant force applied. And considering the multitude of directions, you need to account for a lot of force vectors

Here on Earth dust may flit around like we see, but not in space.

But if you wish to rewrite Newton I am all ears.

Otherwise your argument is a lot of hot air

Zorgon, you're a likeable guy, so it pains me to see you making mistakes in such a consistent manner.

There's plenty of air drag in space -- it's why nearby particles are cleared out of the shuttle vicinity in a matter of tens of minutes.

Course changes can occur during thruster firings -- which can last for many seconds, pushing gently all the time -- or other even-more-long-lived effluent dumps such as water releases, flash evaporator runs, APU test firings, other outgassing events.

Boy, it sure would be nice if we could compare these exact scenes with the exact list of shuttle activities during the same period.

But we can't. And you know why -- the coverup. The youtube posters refuse to provide the information needed to determine WHICH intervals to examine.

How convenient for the UFO theories.


[edit on 11-6-2009 by JimOberg]

admin edit: DO NOT resort to childish namecalling, it's not what we do here.

[edit on 6-11-2009 by Springer]

I have posted some material relevant to this thread here where the tether sequence has come up.

Here is part of it.

Originally posted by Pimander
Now take a look at the section of this video (which you used in your analysis) at about 5m0s to 5m25s.

In this section from about 5mthere are obviously moving UFO's that become more in focus when the tether becomes more in focus. Using your logic that means that those UFO's are further from the shuttle than 105m NOT nearer.

It looks suspiciously like you selected a section of the sequence for analysis or were careless not to study other sections. A proper analysis would involve obtaining the original video for a start! You would also need to analyse the whole sequence to see if your findings are consistent or repeatable.

Another criticism would be that a lot of what you assume is the camera focus changing appears like it is just as likely to be someone tampering with the contrast. How have you eliminated that possibility? There is even one point when one of the voices mentions contrast. Most images are altered using software long before they make it to utube and even NASA 'originals', which you don't have, hardly have the reputation of being squeaky clean. In fact the images are such poor quality (NASA, the richest research organisation in the world) the tether is NEVER in focus as it doesn't even look like the tether - as one of the communicators from Houston points out.

In fact if your analysis was more convincing it might help show that it is likely some of the UFO's are not ice particles near the camera.

edit on 20-12-2010 by Pimander because: Typo corrected

It may seem a little out of context here but I wrote it for the other thread.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Well, since my last debunking bonus check has been held up in the mail since 1998, I've had to get a real job to eat.

Seriously, I want to dig this out but frankly the priority on my list of 'space puzzles' isn't as high as I'm sure you think it deserves.

Admittedly, it would be higher if I didn't expect, based on past performance, that any results I come up with wouldn't be knee-jerk blown off like other research -- most notably on STS-48 and STS-80 pseudo-UFO-videos -- has been.

Since there is a near-infinite catalog of youtube 'space UFO' videos, it's an endless treadmill of frustrations trying to repeatedly respond to the "OK, yes, but what about THIS one?" mantra.

But I did promise -- and you are justified in reminding me.

Where is the official NASA footage? Is it in the same box with the Roswell artifacts?

Originally posted by Pimander
I have posted some material relevant to this thread

Here is part of it.

Originally posted by Pimander
Another criticism would be that a lot of what you assume is the camera focus changing appears like it is just as likely to be someone tampering with the contrast. How have you eliminated that possibility?

Listen to what the voice says in the video: "I completely unzoomed...I tried to adjust the focus but I can't get it any better than that".

So he says what he did, and the video appears to show exactly what he said he did.

Yet you would like us to consider it was a contrast adjustment? It's not just as likely, because he doesn't say anything about adjusting contrast, he says he adjusted the zoom and focus.

FAIL!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
So he says what he did, and the video appears to show exactly what he said he did.

Yet you would like us to consider it was a contrast adjustment? It's not just as likely, because he doesn't say anything about adjusting contrast, he says he adjusted the zoom and focus.

FAIL!

Perhaps in the tiny section of the sequence analysed he was adjusting the focus. However that is obviously not my main point. My initial point is clearly in bold type and I will clarify it a little here for you.

Not long before the part in the sequence where he mentions he has tried adjusting the image that(between 5m05s and 5m13s to be precise) the tether clearly comes more into focus as do some of the moving UFO's. Following depthoffields logic, that means that the objects that come sharper into into focus at that point are further than 105m from the shuttle camera.

Depthoffield enters some data on a depth of field calculator and then states

Originally posted by depthoffield
Hyperfocal distance for this NASA camera is 105 meters !

So, we already have one value which greatly clarify the situation here!

When this NASA camera is focused to infinite, at maximum zoom, all the objects further from 105 meters will be in focus (here the stars and the tether). But, our objects which we clearly see they are out of focus (producing bokeh discs) must be close than 105 meters!!!

This is first approach to the reality of the distance to the unfocused objects.

He then only analyses objects in a tiny part of the sequence. However in the part I draw you attention to (between 5m05s and 5m13s) some of the moving UFOs are more in-focus at the same time as the tether so must be further away from the NASA camera than its hyperfocal distance of 105m. (I also have my doubts that NASA were using a camera with a hyperfocal distance of only 105m on a space mission!)

What do I conclude from that? We can say that if depthoffield's analysis were valid (doubtful for reasons I have and will give again) then some of the moving UFO's were objects more than 105m from the camera and may be much further. We can't say how far or what they are though using this data.

However, the analysis is clearly flawed so we can't even conclude that. Even if he is correct about a few seconds of sequence, I have here shown that there are other sections that tell a different tale. The image quality is so poor as to be unsuitable for this type of analysis really and I already fear if better quality footage emerges we are wasting time debating this. The key though, to how flawed the analysis is, is summed up in my earlier comments.

Originally posted by Pimander
It looks suspiciously like you selected a section of the sequence for analysis or were careless not to study other sections. A proper analysis would involve obtaining the original video for a start! You would also need to analyse the whole sequence to see if your findings are consistent or repeatable.

Those comments come from the point of view of fairness in all this! If I produced a scientifically-flawed analysis of such poor quality footage, that is not the original anyway as evidence of ET/critters I would be debunked by you arbitrageur and many others immediately! Rightly so! It is double standards of the highest order if you to not demand the same levels of scrutiny for depthoffield's analysis as you would when debunking other material.

I also think that to pick on part of my point and miss the part in bold type and then claim 'FAIL!', is pretty lame. You have ignored the majority of what I have said. I also think it might be sensible to try to get our hands on some better quality original footage before we close this case. We could also analyse the optics of the whole sequence and get some more convincing answers.

My real conclusion is: Case not closed.

NOTE TO READERS: I have also explained in another thread that I agree with Torsion that some of the disk like 'objects' in the sequence are in fact camera artefacts here.

Hi, Pimander,
I try to answer to you, despite time isn't a friend of mine (so, i could be too confuse in explanations)

First, my analysis doesn't conclude that ALL the objects seen in the full tether sequence are small particles close to the camera. I guess NOBODY can conclude that never for every single particle. But it demonstrates something that critter/alien conspiracy theorists denied againd and again: close and small particles are there in the image! How close? meters and tens of meters away from camera! How small? well, small enough to understand they are particles in proximity of the shuttle. Debris (ice or whatever originates from the shuttle itself). Even the astronauts says that in real time: "there is a bit of debris which kinda flying with us" (if i remember well the dialog). And what those conspiracy theorists says? No, it can't be small and close, it can't be debris, therefore they are aliens ships/distant big critters, it defies rational explanation etc etc, look, please look, dear audience, how misterious is the video etc. But they are wrong and clearly against a rational explanation which tickle their credibility. But as you can see, just one arbitrary second of focus-defocus maneuver, analysed by me, which, because the laws of optics, gave a method of understanding the DEPTH of the image (otherwise, ussually a video/photo is simple a bidimensional representation of reality, where the 3-rd dimension, depth, is lost). And that arbitrary second, full of very representative "UFOs", was so lucky to detect not a single one distant but only many closer and small objects, most likely DEBRIS near the shuttle ?!? How is that? It means, that there, in the vicinity of the shuttle, there are DEBRIS close to it, appearing in the image. Something which those cospiracy theorists were unhappy to accept as a posibility. Now, accepting that some of those are debris, which APPEAR OR HAVE curved trajectories (normal in space in appropiate conditions), or discs appearance (bokeh) then, or other interesting characteristics, we need a criteria to tell us what objects there are NOT debris or small particles, but REAL/TRUE UFO's. And that criteria is.. let me guess.... ignorance in knowing all the aspects involved (debris and their cause/manifestation, image artifacts and limitations, orbital movement of shuttle and debris in it's simplicity but complexity as well etc)?

Originally posted by Pimander
Now take a look at the section of this video (which you used in your analysis) at about 5m0s to 5m25s.

In this section from about 5mthere are obviously moving UFO's that become more in focus when the tether becomes more in focus. Using your logic that means that those UFO's are further from the shuttle than 105m NOT nearer.

well, in this part you say to take a look, i don't see a lens focus/defocus maneuveur.
I see a bit of optical zoom. But i also recognise from my little experience how automatic exposure works (- do you?), here it is: together with the zoom, the big bright flare inside the lens appearing in the right part of the frame, is becaming bigger and brighter. This affects the automatic gain of the electronics of the camera, which aknowledged that there is a bigger and very bright (overexposed) area of the frame, therefore the gain is reduced in an attempt to do the automatic medium proper exposure (it is simply how it works). This affects the tethter, stars, objects and overall sky brightness, making them less exposed or darker, reducing the BLOOMING (do you also recognise/know this artifact?) of tether and very bright objects, therefore making them to appear more like "in focus" than before.
So, in fact, that sequence selected by you, does not show a real lens focus maneuveur, but a automatic gain variation which reduces the blooming of overbright objects, giving the primary sensation that is a focus action, despite it is not. Therefore, you don't have any indication of depth of the image here, so, you can't tell that the objects are more distant or not. You are stuck in the two dimensional representation here, and can't judge the depth. Therefore, you can't apply "my logic" here, because here we don't have a lens focus-defocus action able to "scan" the depth of the image.

Originally posted by Pimander
It looks suspiciously like you selected a section of the sequence for analysis or were careless not to study other sections.

Well, i selected the single relevant sequence where, because it contains the focus-defocus lens maneuveur, and based on it we are able to understand the DEPTH of the image, so, if you read properly my analysis , i was able to make separation between objects and stars, allowed me to understand which were stars and not (and later to find the stars in charts!), and then calculate the distance to the objects. All other sequences are flat, and are not suitable for that analysis. (due to ignored 3d dimension = depth of the image). So, if you call it suspiciously, then..it's your choice.

Originally posted by Pimander
A proper analysis would involve obtaining the original video for a start!

unfortunately i'm not able to do this, and i worked with what i have, but this should never stoped us to think critically of it..despite low quality we recognise the focus-defocus maneuveur (laws of optics, bokeh, cat-eye effect etc).
I don't look with good eyes the attitude: "i think it's low quality, any researches are useless, instead look how beautiful and misterious it is" (in this atittude, why bother to look if it is useless??) (this not directed to you, but i know this general attitude of some people)

Originally posted by Pimander
You would also need to analyse the whole sequence to see if your findings are consistent or repeatable.

unfortunately, the tether sequence is just like that, we have only that.
yes, i should make a + 200 pages book, and spend months of studies, graphics and explanations just to be ignored by the masses which simple looks for a form of entertainment when looking of these "ufo's"..sorry, i can't do it unless i can have a kind of benefit from it...or too much spare time to spend.

Originally posted by Pimander
Another criticism would be that a lot of what you assume is the camera focus changing appears like it is just as likely to be someone tampering with the contrast. How have you eliminated that possibility? There is even one point when one of the voices mentions contrast.

I don't assumed that. That focus-defocus lens maneuveur is just that: a focus-defocus lens maneuveur. If you don't recognise it, then, ask a skilled photographer. Of course we also have in the whole tether movie all kind of gain/iris adjustements together with over/under exposures, bloomings or other artifacts. Keep in mind that those are very challenging shooting conditions beyound dynamic range of any camera: low light = dark sky with dim stars still visible, but filled with objects (debris and tether) which are in direct sunlight, but more, the sun light strike the lens making those big static flares spoiling more the image. In this conditions, how should be the PROPER exposure? Answer: a compromise...


point of my analysis: there are small and close objects near the shuttle, meters or tens of meters away, plenty of them, appearing in image as relevant "UFO's". Debris are described by direct witnesses (astronaut). Debris are common in space due to shuttle activities. Therefore, i don't have a reason to think at them as being distant alien ships or critters in space. But ask David Sereda, Secretnasaman or many others: they will simply deny even the posibility of trivial causes like debris, because it contradicts their ego/intents: the audience must look at their misteries.

Finally, an example of daylight debris near the shuttle, way less challenging shooting conditions, just for example of trivial phenomenon which is "debris":

Thanks for the videos,it was nice to see a new life form. They look like eyes. White plasma like masses with a black spot in the midle. And since you can see the black spot that shows it is either denser than the white mass or the things are watching the camera from the only angle you can see the black spot.

So,those eye looking things are closer to us than the tether. The deffiniton of tether is a gateway that anchors things in place so they can move a limited distance. So,that could very well mean those eye looking plasma balls could be coming out of the tether from another place. The tether bieng the gateway,but remember a tether also works like an anchor so they can only go a certain distance.

reply to post by depthoffield

Thanks for replying so quickly, depthoffield. I was worried I wouldn't get a reply to this until after the holiday. I do appreciate the time you took to run through this with me.

I'm not going to make any bones about it. I am researching the 'conspiracy theory' that there is a cover up about technology and maybe E.T.'s. However I like to remain sceptical (English spelling not US) about evidence for AND against which is what all real sceptics should do. I am not part of the lunatic fringe. I agree that the disk like objects are artefacts and that there probably is lots of ice debris around if there are thrusters firing. I just want to be sure that we aren't missing something because you have shown that some of the 'UFO's' were particles near the shuttle. Ice debris could easily be used when it's something else that we see.

I think I owe you an apology regarding the use of the word 'suspiciously' in my post. It sounds like I was questioning your integrity which was not my intention. Sorry. I sometimes unintentionally offend as I frequently come across as aggressive. That is down to my approach of forcefully attacking ideas to get to the heart of the matter quickly. I think it often leaves the recipient with the impression I am attacking the person who wrote it, which, of course, I am not. I'm basically a nice guy really - it's just how I communicate ideas.

I promise to get back with more of a response, as what you said about zoom (rather that focus) was something I was going to mention. It sounds as though you know more about it than me so please be patient with me. There are other points too which you may be able to help me with. I will respond more thoroughly at some point over the holiday.

By the way, I love the way you use English. You remind me of a Polish scientist who I used to know.

similar mechanisms.... www.sgha.net...

uap... www.narcap.org...

Excellent work depth of field. I admire your dedication to understanding the truth. I think we all were taken aback by that footage when we first saw it. But myself, even i had a rethink. I remember the first thing i said to myself was, inanimate objects can look like life too. Heck we all know about crystals. I also figure that maybe some form of magnetic field was what was drawing those particles.
Of course your post throws that out the window. But, you see, you and people like us seek reality. instinctively a lot of us began to question what we were seeing. A lot of people don't realize that as a terrestrial animal, victim to gravity and other forces of nature. We have a pretty good grasp on recognizing real versus non real. reflexive action would be useless otherwise.
my conclusions were based on my university taught knowledge of biology . there were just too many questions regarding it to be life versus some form of matter appearing to move like life. when we were kids, we all pretty much played with magnets in the sand. that old paper with the lead we would grab from the granules.
just think the action of doing that (grabbing the lead) and then when we would move the magnet under the paper watching the filaments raise like strands of hair in waves. would look lifelike in any other context.
as for what the attractor is for those particles in space, could be anything really..sunlight seems to be a good candidate.resonance in the emf field perhaps?
well done depthoffield thanks for the effort and time.

I've been doing a lot of digging into the STS-75 video, and have come up with some new information.

Here is a draft write-up about the actual relative motion of the shuttle and the tether during the re-encounter four days after the break.

I'll post the data charts shortly, here's my draft narrative.

The relative motion between shuttle ‘Columbia’ and the separated TSS-1R payload and tether during the crew’s observations on Flight Day 9 [March 1, 1996] turn out to be a lot more complex than earlier simplistic reconstructions imagined. The actual profile, now confirmed with computer simulations from two independent sources, directly bear on what was being seen, photographed, and shown on televised scenes by the on-duty astronaut team of Jeff Hoffman, Claude Nicollier, and Franklin Chang-Diaz.

After the tether snapped four days earlier, the satellite had been thrown into a higher, slower orbit. Columbia pulled ahead and then, over the next several days, overtook the tether from behind and below, and finally lapped it about a hundred hours after initial separation.

But the fly-under path was far from the simple directly underneath pass that observers imagined. Several factors of orbital mechanics influenced this.

Most important was the shift in the orbital plane of both satellites, but each at a different rate. This difference was due to the tether’s higher altitude, where its path was affected slightly less by the gravitational torques of Earth’s equatorial bulge. As a result, although ‘Columbia’s orbit was twisted westward at a daily rate of 7.49 degrees, the tether’s rate was only 7.24, leaving an inertial orientation difference after one full lapping [four days] of 1.14 degrees. Combined with the orbital inclination [28 deg] this created a planar difference of 0.52 degrees. That difference in latitude is 52 NM, or about 100 km.

In practical terms this meant that far from passing overhead, as viewed from Columbia the tether was swinging left and right every orbit. Visualize a driver in the center lane of a three lane highway with a wild driver ahead, who is swinging from far left to far right lane and back again. Because the tether was in a higher orbit [between 20 and 110 km higher] there was no risk of collision but the left-right-left swings would still be dramatic. In orbital terms, the swing distance to either side was about 60 kilometers.

The secondary complicating factor is that the TSS-1R target was in a highly eccentric orbit. It had started out tethered 20 km above ‘Columbia’, at the same orbital speed. But the break threw it into a higher orbit, reaching out as far as 110 km higher. Soaring higher, its speed dropped, and then it swooped lower, regaining its initial speed – again and again and again.

As a result, back on the three-lane highway analogy, it’s as if the swerving car stepped on the brake in the right lane, increasing your own overtaking rate, and then accelerated as it swerved to the left until it was almost holding its own, not appearing to fall back at all. The left-right swings continue, but the overtaking rate was quite different, right lane versus left lane.

As a result of the actual geometry, the tether does NOT pass directly above the shuttle, but off to one side or the other. Depending on where it is on the left-right-left swerving, it generally lurks near the straight out horizontal viewing vector [a few close passes are as high as 30 degrees] At Columbia’s altitude, ‘straight horizontal’ is still well above the actual earth horizon, which for 290 km is 17 degrees down. So the tether is somewhat above the horizon during the observation periods, but nowhere near overhead.

Now add in the critical factor of illumination, which determines where along each swing the target satellite can actually be seen. First, for 40% of each orbit the tether is in Earth’s shadow and is dark. Then, at sunrise, the tether can be seen. At sunrise, on this particular mission, the sun is about 30 degrees right of the direction of motion [this is called the orbit’s “beta angle”], so viewing in that direction is difficult. And as the target swerves left and right, and as the sun ‘rises’ higher in the sky, glare effects make the dim satellite unobservable.

Columbia’s dark periods on the part of the day in question were 03:25:18 to 04:00:02 GMT, 4:55:36 to 05:30:22 GMT, 6:25:54 to 7:00:41 GMT, and 07:56:12 to 08:31:00 GMT Several minutes after sunrise would be the best viewing opportunity.

Shuttle flight plan documents and MCC time callouts are more often in Mission Elapsed Time, or MET. To convert MET to GMT for STS-75, add 51/20:18:00, the GMT date/time of mission launch. A third time hack needed here is the tape clock time on the three hour-long hi-def tapes on youtube, to reference exact mission comments. The NASA document “STS-75 Scene List” spells out both GMT and MET, but the tape time had to be measured during actual playing of the videos.

Now for the precise angles and times for STS-75. They were calculated by two expert sources and compared to the transcript I prepared from the hours of videotapes that spanned the four observation periods of the Flight Day 09 fly-under. They used public orbital data and can be replicated and verified by anyone with public domain s/w such as the “Satellite Tool Kit”. Here are the results.

Columbia had been commanded into a special observation attitude described in the FD08 update message as –ZLV, -XVV, which means -Z axis [body up-down] as local vertical, -X [body long axis] in the velocity vector. This put Columbia moving tail forward, payload bay pointing to space.

First observation: Sunrise was at 04:00 GMT, the tether was at near far right elongation [and greatest altitude]. Azimuth was 068 deg , range was 527 km, elevation 009 deg above horizontal [and this 026 deg above visible earth limb].Over the next ten minutes the azimuth shifted to 075, elevation rose to 014 [i.e., 031 to earth horizon], as range dropped to 402 km.

This is the period when the crew got their first look at the tether, although the video images were poor. Viewing angles out the forward left window [in the commander’s seat] were already near the trailing edge, looking hard to the left from the seat. But the aft cabin windows were worse, they directly in the glare of the rising sun at azimuth 033. Over the next ten minutes the sun moved halfway up the sky [40 degrees] so the crew then also tried the aft window, without much improvement.

Columbia was out of contact during this post-sunrise period, so the exact times of the observation were not recorded. The sequence was taped and then downlinked a few minutes later [04:31 to 04:39] with crew comments.

During the following period the full daylight glare rendered the tether non-observable, it continued its swing right to left, passing above and in front of Columbia. Reaching maximum leftward swing while also its lowest altitude, it briefly kept pace with the shuttle before beginning the swing back to the right. Sunset occurred, and about ten minutes later the tether passed right in front of and above the shuttle’s nose, about 85 km out, unseen in the darkness. It then continued its swing to the right and reached maximum off-angle.

more

continued

Second [“swarm”] observation. Sunrise occurred at 05:30 [the tether ‘rose’ about a minute before Columbia due to its higher altitude], at a range of 146 km, off to the right but now slightly trailing. Near its max altitude, the tether was high in the sky as viewed by Columbia. Cameras C and D in the payload bay were in use, and it would have been clearly visible in the overhead window.

Note that for this pass the line of sight to the upper right was in the vicinity of the shuttle’s water dump ports along the left side of the crew cabin [which was pointed backwards for this observation period].

During this period Columbia was passing points 002N 007W to 019N 027E.This was predawn [but sunlit in space] from the coast of Liberia to northern Sudan, continuing across Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, towards Pakistan. It would have been bright in the predawn skies of West Africa all the way across Nigeria. The tether would have been much dimmer by comparison, but any other really large objects would have been starkly brighter a good distance away.

Third observation, tbs