OAO 3 has been one of my favorite satellites because of its very complex flash pattern, punctuated by these extremely bright flares. I forget the period, but it's something rather long (minute range), so it takes awhile to realize that it's periodic. I like picking up the satellite in binoculars, and following it until the bright flare. -- Sean On Thu, 4 Aug 2005, skywise wrote: > Stepped out on my balcony just a few minutes ago to enjoy the cool > night air and looked up and noticed an extremely bright star. It > was moving west to east and just passing Altair. It quickly became > apparent that it was a flaring satellite, but oh-my! was this bright. > Comparing to -8 Iridium flares this was comparable, if not brighter. > It made Altair look like a match next to a maglight. > > I quickly determined this was OAO 3 Copernicus (06153, 1972-065-A). > > Brian ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 05 2005 - 01:04:03 EDT