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UND Aerospace Balloon to Track Leonid Meteor Shower



I promised to keep you posted on UND's high-altitude balloon to collect
Leonid dust and image the shower--

Our guys just ran two computer simulations (using Northwood, N,D, the
launch base) to project the flight path and landing locale: 1000 fpm ascent
2000 fpm descent, 85,000 feet burst height, and winds aloft soundings from
Bismarck and International Falls from 12Z Nov 17.

Bismarck sounding:
	Launch point 	47.7343 N, 97.5664 W
	Landing point	47.2987 N, 96.1158 W
	Bearing 113.4
	Range	74.0 miles
	Near Faith, MN (about 8 miles east of Twin Valley, between
		Ada and Mahnomen

International Falls sounding:
	Launch point	47.7343 N, 97.5664 W
	Landing point	47.1706 N, 96.5193 W
	Bearing 128.1
	Range 62.5 miles
	Near Borup, MN (about 10 miles south of Ada)

Both tracks run to the east southeast after launch.

Will let you know tomorrow what happens (ditto our observation of the Moon
for Leonid impacts).

LOUIS VARRICCHIO
 Environmental Information Specialist &
 Producer/Writer, "Our Changing Planet"
  (Visit OCP-TV on the Web at: www.umac.org/ocp)
  Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium
  Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences
  University of North Dakota
  Grand Forks, N.D. 58202-9007  U.S.A.
    Phone: 701-777-2482
    Fax: 701-777-2940
    E-mail: varricch@umac.org (in N.D.); morbius@together.net (in Vt.)

"Behind every man alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by
which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, a hundred
billion human beings have walked the planet Earth." -- Arthur C. Clarke

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