A very sad day today.  :-(

 From about 5:53AM PST until about 5:55AM PST the shuttle was easily visible
from here in Huntington Beach in SoCal.  Using 7x binoculars, I observed quite
close to the horizon an orange point of light with a faint, trailing orange
contrail.

There were a few periodic "bursts" in the contrail where it got somewhat
brighter and then dimmed back down to the average brightness.  I have never
witnessed a shuttle re-entry before, so I have no idea if those brightness
bursts were normal.  I could not perceive anything falling off of the shuttle
and forming a separate contrail.

According to the post-disaster news conference, the first sensor failures in
the left wing of the shuttle occurred at 5:53AM.  Did this have anything to do
with the bursts I saw?  I have no idea.
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