Iridium flare inside the Saturn's ring

From: Denis V. Denissenko (denis@hea.iki.rssi.ru)
Date: Thu Feb 12 2004 - 09:33:33 EST

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    Greetings to SeeSat subscribers!
    
    There will be a bright Iridium 40 flare in Gemini this evening in 
    Moscow.  At 19:33:30 MSK (UT+0300) satellite will transit Saturn within 
    a narrow path from approximately Dolgoprudny to Garden Ring and further 
    to Moscow south.  The flare will reach its maximum brightness (-8m) at 
    19:33:40 MSK about 4 degrees south from Saturn.
    
    With a distance to satellite 1000 km and angular size of Saturn's ring 
    45"x20" (1/3600 area of solar and lunar disc) the width of transit path 
    is about 200 meters (0.2 km).  Moscow spans 30 km from West to East and 
    38 km from North to South (within the Belt Road, suburbs not included).  
    Preliminary calculations have shown the central line about 5 km East 
    from Sternberg Astronomy Institute at Moscow University (Lat = 55.70, 
    Lon = 37.55).
    
    Several dozen members of Moscow Astronomy Club were informed on this 
    event at the Club Meeting yesterday.  People are going to observe this 
    event with the scopes and Philips 740 webcams from the Club building at 
    Bauman's Garden.  At the moment (2 hours before the event) the sky is 
    clear with a 1-2 m/s wind from NW, so there are some chances.
    
    I know there are some subscribers from Moscow on this list.  If you are 
    reading this, please try to photograph the flare or take video.  I am 
    sure these flares can occur at other longitudes in mid-northern 
    latitudes (Scandinavia, Britain, Canada).  Please check out your local 
    Iridium flare predictions at Heavens Above or with SkyMap of Iridflar 
    sotware.
    
    Predictions of Iridium flares in Moscow are posted every week at 
    http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/~denis/iridmsk.html (since August 1999 in 
    English) or at my Russian page http://bigden.ru/
    
    Good luck with your observations, and please post the photos and 
    animations!  Are there any images of Iridium passing through the ring of 
    Saturn?
    
    By the way, can anybody make a precise lat minute prediction of the 
    transit path?  I got only approximate figures:
    
    55.93N  37.56E
    55.83N  37.59E
    55.72N  37.62E
    55.67N  37.64E
    55.60N  37.67E
    
    Denis
    -- 
    Denis V. Denissenko
    Space Research Institute (IKI)
    Profsoyuznaya st., 84/32
    117997, Moscow, Russia
    +7-095-333-4078 (w)
    +7-916-564-8282 (m)
    
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