Obs. 31 December

Mir16609@aol.com
Thu, 31 Dec 1998 19:20:51 EST

Hello Everyone and Happy Leap Second  :-)

The ISS made the best evening pass in this area to date, cumulating at 40 deg
in the NNW.  It rose just to the right of Altar at 22:54 UTC.  Brightness was
a steady +1.0 to +0.5 mag except for a brief (3 second) flare to -1 at
22:55:30 UTC. 

Iridium 24 (25105) gave some nice 1x flashes at 23:02:35 +/-1sec and  23:03:01
+/-0.5 sec.

Cosmos 100 RK (01844) and UARS (21701) were both a steady 2.0 mag for their
passes at 23:17 and 23:28 UTC respectively.

Even with a nearly full moon, some normally faint objects were fairly easy to
observe.  Radarsat (23710) was about a +5.0 at 22:48 UTC and COBE (20322) was
about a 4.5 mag at 22:23 UTC.  

Cheers.
Don Gardner
Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609
39.1796 N,  76.8419 W, 34m ASL