George Kristiansen wrote: This is my first submission to the Seesat list. I recently observed a bright and extensive flare from COSMO-SkyMed 4, which is a lesser known source of bright satellite flares. Here are the details: Location: 53.4N, -0.7W Magnitude: -1.7 Duration: ~20 seconds Time: 18:50:20UTC, 8 Feb 2011 Hi George, You will see more of these flares at about the same time when a Skymed is there. Last year I was and still am cooperating with a meteor-observer. He makes all-sky-records in order to get bright traces from meteors. All records on which presumable bright satellite tracks appear are sent to me. Until 2011-01-11 I was able to identify more than 200 satellites. Surprise: 25 of them were Skymeds. When they have a transit at about 18:20 UT they flare brightly to about -1.5. Your observation location is about 6 degrees to the west and a bit to the north. I expect your flare time will be about 25 minutes later. If a Skymed is there, 18:20 + 0:25 = 18:45. I have not yet got the time the analyse those flare photographs more thorough. And compare them with my own naked eye observations. I hope to write more about it within a couple of weeks. As the Skymed orbits are Sun synchronous the place of those flares does not change much. A better mathematician than I am will certainly find an algorithm to derive a relation between observer's, satellite and sun's location. More to follow. Happy observing. Site 4160: 51.27931 N, 5.47683 E (WGS84), 35 m Bram Dorreman _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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