Message posted by JB737 on October 17, 2007 at 15:17:29 PST:
In Google Earth, I found what appears to be the white bus, traveling NE on 375, about 850 feet from the offroad track exit point mentioned in the recent Powerlines Overlook trip report. Here are the coordinates of the GE pushpin I put on the suspected bus: "White Bus" lat=37.4882704965, lon=-115.338174426 The dimensions of the bus at first appear to be 47.5 feet long by 13.5 feet wide, but clearly (unless a wide load was caught passing by) this is inflated by the resolution issues of the photo. A bus is 8 feet wide, so the actual dimensions are implied to be 42L x 8W, assuming equal blurriness in all directions which would cause a bright point source of light to appear as a 5.5 foot diameter circle. This implies optical resolution of a bit under a meter, the exact number depending upon the exact bus width and whether you use Dawes' Limit vs Rayleigh's Criterion, etc. Anyway, it sure sounds like a bus to me from the size alone (although I admittedly cheated by assuming the width to be the width of a bus), and there is no sign of it being articulated like a short tractor trailer. I'm not sure how to figure out the date taken; or the time of day for GE photos except maybe from shadows, but it would be cool to show that it was taken at the time the bus would normally pass the Hancock Summit area on its way back to Alamo. JB737
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