REMEMBERING MIR

Anyone else remember Mir up in the winter sky?Last night around four am I woke up and looked out my laundry room back door too see what constellations were up, I love doing that during the night. When I looked out I saw Orion was well placed for observing and sirius was out just below. Then I remembered something very cool! Twelve years ago during my first year of observing there used to be a big light to the Right and up a little, it would be there almost every night. Then I found out it was a satellite ... I completely forgot about that. there used to be a big star or something that was accompanying Orion and it twinkled. I looked at my star maps and it was not there. I looked it up online and it turned out to be Mir, the russian space station.For three years I enjoyed Orion's glittery companion. After it was returned to Earth I missed seeing it out there for a couple of years, that was nice to be reminded of it! I also remember Ken Hewitt-White's article in the SkyNews magazine mentioning how he was going to miss going out too ...