The string of new Iridiums continues to slowly pull apart, except for the last two, 25107 and 25108. For some reason, they continue to be extremely close to each other. During a pass at 12:48 12/23 UT (04:48 local) they were separated by only .75 deg. This worked out to about 3 seconds. The others ranged from 12 to 15 seconds apart from each other. A few odds and ends: In an earlier post, I mentioned I didn't see the recent Progress vehicle Monday night. No wonder. It had already docked with Mir. I also mentioned I was looking for it in the Northwest, but that was a typo. I meant Northeast. Iridium 24 (24905, 97-43C) flared to about -4 at a distance of 2112km, at 13:03:46 12/23 UT, instead of the predicted -1. The elevation was 13 degrees. Iridflar 1.4 flare angle was .51, Skysat .42. James Oberg posted an interesting article to the Friends and Partners In Space mailing list about the wayward Inspector satellite. To read it go to the archives page at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/dconst/FPSpace/date.html#742 His article should show up in the archives soon, near the top of the list with a subject of: Mir/Inspector Relative motion For more info about FPSACE, including how to join the e-mail list: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~jgreen/fpsorg/fpsorg.html Florida Today Space Online has a press release on the upcoming Orbcomm Pegasus launch: http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/122397c.htm For those with dishes, it mentions how to pick up the satellite TV feed. Another nice website with space related news is: http://www.spacer.com/ While it isn't kept as up-to-the-minute as Florida Today, it has pretty good information about the Japanese space program, including short articles about the problems with ETS-7 at: http://www.spacer.com/spacenet/text/ets7-h.html http://www.spacer.com/spacenet/text/ets7-e.html Craig Cholar 3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL Marina, California 36 41 10.3N, 121 48 17.9W (36.6862, -121.8050) UTC -8