Nasa Notes
... Jim Timmons

WATCH THIS (Shuttle Atlantis) - Forget your reality television! Here's something you haven't seen. When shuttle Atlantis launches in early October, the launch will be televised for the first time from a camera mounted on the external tank. The six inch long camera will be turned on fifteen minutes prior to launch and is expected to operate for thirty minutes. The camera will give a view of the orbiter front and belly, along with a part of the solid rocket boosters (SRB) and external tank. Images of the spacecraft clearing the launch tower and SRB separations are expected. External tank separation might be seen if the camera signal can still be acquired at that range.

SPOCK'S GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT  GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER? (ISS) - A member of the Expedition 5 crew aboard the International Space Station has been named the first NASA ISS Science Officer. Dr. Peggy Whitson, who is the current Flight Engineer, was named to this new assignment by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe recently. O'Keefe noted that the station is nearing the two year mark with a permanent crew and the time had come for the station to emphasize  the research being conducted on the ISS.

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Doug Christianson - During gaps in the cloud cover last night I made the following observations from Arlington, TX.  Nova Sgr 2002 (No. 3), 9/24/2002 with 10x50 binocs at 8:50pm CDT, confirmed sighting at mag between 6.2 and 6.7 with 4 1/2 Newtonian reflector at 9:57pm. Using 26mm EP I was able to make a longer observation and estimated mag to be 6.5. The nearest reference stars were 6.24 and 6.71, no magnitudes in between were available for comparison. My wife commented that it was reddish. It has not dimmed significantly from the day before. I consider this to be a more accurate magnitude estimate than my 6.7 estimate from the day before, so the dimming is not as rapid as I suggested at that time.  It has a very starlike appearance, so you can only identify it by position and the knowledge from charts that there was no star there prior to Sept 19. This part of Sagittarius has a couple of nice triangular star patterns to help find things and the nova forms a nice triangle with the 6.1 and 6.24 reference stars that just fits in my FOV with the 26mm EP and the 4 1/2 inch Newtonian. FOV about 1 degree. With binoculars you can see the entire area and several of the triangular patterns at once.