After some days of clouds and rain, the sky cleared this evening. >From outside my office, I was lucky enough to see a magnificent flare from Iridium 30. Adapted Iridflar output for a "generic" Austin location (30.30N, 97.75W, 150 meters): Iridium Sun Fl Maximum Flare Ir Date UTC Time UTC Azm Al Rnge N Al Mag Lat. Long. # ----------------------------------------------------------------- 98- 1- 8 00:16:35 048 67 838 A -6 -8 30.305 -97.712 30 Since the Moon was in easy view, I made a quick back-and-forth one-power comparison. It appeared to me that the Iridium flare was much more intense than the Moon's light. I don't know the physics and/or optics to know what to make of that in terms of apparent magnitude. Iridiums are nearly point sources, while the Moon is not. In any case, I'd say that, in some very real sense, the Iridium flare was brighter than the Moon, which tonight is about 67 percent illuminated according to: http://saatel.it/users/lore/moon.html Also saw 4 others sats (only a few bright passes tonight). Ed Cannon ecannon@mail.utexas.edu Austin, Texas, USA