CITY TO GET EYEFUL FROM LOST SATELLITE.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

NASA's run-away satellite-on-a-cord that broke loose from the space shuttle Columbia last week will be visible with the naked eye over Los Angeles beginning Wednesday.

The experimental satellite - dangling almost 13 miles of hanging cable - will appear over the Southland before dawn four days this week and three days next week as its orbit decays, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

"It will be almost directly overhead, and with a 13-mile-long tether that would make it quite large in the sky," said Gene Hanson, president of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society.

"It will be quite easy to see," Hanson said. "It reflects the light and it's in a dark sky. It's going to be like a thread hanging up there. A pair of binoculars would help."

The satellite and tether will be visible to the naked eye just before sunrise this week and next in parts of Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

NASA officials said to look for the satellite passing overhead in the predawn hours.

The schedule for Los Angeles is as follows: 5:37 a.m. Wednesday; 4:46 a.m. Friday; 5:06 a.m. Saturday; 5:24 a.m. March 10; 4:42 a.m. March 13; 4:56 a.m. March 14; and 5:08 a.m. March 15.

The duration of each sighting will be one to four minutes.