Gemini 7 Technical Debriefing, 1965

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137
zon. And with no Moon, the best sextant sighting spot to
use was the upper air glow, because it was the sharpest of
the two.
The area between the upper air glow area and the
earth's horizon was too milky during a no Moon to get a good
sharp contrast (you could see stars through it), but you
couldn't find out exactly where the horizon was.
So it
varied between full Moon and no Moon.
Borman
Very drastically too. Also, your ability to pick out the
earth, and determine yaw from earth's passage wi t h no Moon,
wa.s zilch. With the full Moon it wa.s just as good as it was
in the daylight.
Lovell
The fuon is very bright up there, very bright.
:Borman
Both atti tude a.nd translation thrusters firing were apparent.
The a.ft firing thrusters were not apparent. But the- forward .
thrusters were apparent &t night and so were the transla­
tional, up, down, sideways. The attitude t hrusters were
also apparent with puffs, sort of like subdued flashbulbs
appearing out to the side of the window.
They wer e just
little flashes of light in the background, and we couldn' t
determine &nything from them.
wvell
We couldnJt determine a.nything.
l3orma.n
But you could on Spacecra.ft 6.
wvell
On Spacecraft 6 t he thruster firings looked as though they