From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 09:48:06 PST
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/05/CAMERA.TMP
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Wednesday, February 5, 2003 (SF Chronicle)
S.F. man's astounding photo/Mysterious purple streak is shown hitting Columbia 7 minutes before it disintegrated
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer
Top investigators of the Columbia space shuttle disaster are analyzing a
startling photograph -- snapped by an amateur astronomer from a San
Francisco hillside -- that appears to show a purplish electrical bolt
striking the craft as it streaked across the California sky.
The digital image is one of five snapped by the shuttle buff at roughly
5:53 a.m. Saturday as sensors on the doomed orbiter began showing the
first indications of trouble. Seven minutes later, the craft broke up in
flames over Texas.
The photographer requested that his name not be used and said he would not
release the image to the public until NASA experts had time to examine it.
Although there are several possible benign explanations for the image --
such as a barely perceptable jiggle of the camera as it took the time
exposure -- NASA's zeal to examine the photo demonstrates the lengths at
which the agency is going to tap the resources of ordinary Americans in
solving the puzzle.
Late Tuesday, NASA dispatched former shuttle astronaut Tammy Jernigan, now
a manager at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, to the San Francisco home of
the astronomer to examine his digital images and to take the camera itself
to Mountain View, where it was to be transported by a NASA T-38 jet to
Houston this morning.
A Chronicle reporter was present when the astronaut arrived. First seeing
the image on a large computer screen, she had one word: "Wow."
Jernigan, who is no longer working for NASA, quizzed the photographer on
the aperture of the camera, the direction he faced and the estimated
exposure time -- about four to six seconds on the automatic Nikon 880
camera. It was mounted on a tripod, and the shutter was triggered
manually.
In the critical shot, a glowing purple rope of light corkscrews down
toward the plasma trail, appears to pass behind it, then cuts sharply
toward it from below. As it merges with the plasma trail, the streak
itself brightens for a distance, then fades.
"It certainly appears very anomalous," said Jernigan. "We sure will be
very interested in taking a very hard look at this."
Jernigan flew five shuttle missions herself during the 1990s, including
three on Columbia. On her last flight, the pilot of the craft was Rick
Husband, who was at the controls when Columbia perished.
"He was one of the finest people I could ever hope to know," said
Jernigan.
It was an astounding day for the San Francisco photographer, who said he
had not had any success in reaching NASA through its published telephone
hot lines.
He ultimately reached investigators through a connection with a relative
who attends the same church as former astronaut Jack Lousma, who flew 24
million miles in the Skylab 3 mission in 1973.
Lousma put him in direct touch with Ralph Roe Jr., chief engineer for the
shuttle program at Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston.
After a series of telephone conversations Tuesday afternoon, the
photographer had a veteran shuttle mission specialist knocking at his door
by dinnertime. Within hours, he was left with a receipt, and his camera
was on its way to Houston.
E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.
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Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle
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