(Stay tuned for a report from another Seesat regular on a DEFINITE success...) --Rob I guess that would be me. On 3 Jan, Rob Matson sent me email predicting a magnitude -3 to -4.5 flare from ISS at 7:06:55 AM local on 8 Jan 2001. Now this was about 10 minutes prior to sunrise so I was skeptical I would see it. Sunday night, I ran Skymap to find stars near the predicted flare point so I could orient myself to the exact, or close to, location of the flare. By standing right by a certain tree, looking over another tree for azimuth, then a branch on the adjacent tree for elevation, I could be certain of looking in the right area with no reference stars. This morning I go out about 07:00 local and am glad that there is a bit of darkness still to the sky. However, magnitude 0 Vega is near the flare location but not visible. So I double and triple check the elevation and about 30 seconds prior I scan a bit. Then a few degrees away I see a flare that is easily visible. I was amazed that it was predicted and bright enough to be seen just minutes before sunrise. It faded in several seconds and I looked at my watch. 7:06:59 AM. So Rob's prediction was right on. magnitude is unknown but I will go by Rob's estimate. What a way to start the work week. This was a lot of fun and I appreciate being asked to check out Rob's predictions..Just like I did with normal and lunar Iridium flares. I like these challenges despite my initial skepticism over impending sunrise. Excellent work Rob. Let's try more even though they are likely to be rare from a given location compared to Iridium flares. Ron Lee ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 08 2001 - 17:26:06 PST