I have searched the www looking for
information.
Nothing.
We were observing through telescopes near
McDonald Observatory in West Texas Long
104.01
latititude 30.6. At near 5 am on the morning of
October 26, we witnessed what appeared to be
a contrail from a missile launch. It was
just
west of due north near the star Polaris, but lower about
20 degrees altitude.
This brilliant contrail covered at
least 20 degrees of sky indicating it was nearby. No meteor was seen
or
heard. It did not light up the ground. In fact
we only, noticed that it was there when one of us turned and looked north.
The brilliance
of the huge cloud was near full moon
brightness.
The "contrail" was twisted: going straight up then
westward then spreading outward . It could only be
a rocket launch or missile launch of some
sort.
It was visible until at least 1 hour, and
diminished
in brightness very slowly.
Any ideas? White Sands comes to mind,
but
no launch information was found.
Sincerely,
Barbara Wilson