The following flares were sighted during the period 07.01.01 to 07.09.01. All
passes were per Heaven's Above predictions. All sightings were at the
following location:
39deg 11min N 119deg 45min W elev. 1430m(4700ft)
07.01.01: Iridium 19 flared as predicted. Pass was SSE to NNW. Duration of
pass: 16.2 seconds from first sighting to last point of
visibility(unaided).
07.02.01: Iridium 36 flared as predicted. Pass was S to N. Duration of
pass:
5.15 seconds.
07.07.01: Iridium 37 flared as predicted. Pass was S to N. Duration of pass:
5.0 seconds. The magnitude of this flare was more in the
neighborhood
of -3 than the predicted -5.
07.08.01: Iridium 35 flare was one(1) minute later than predicted. This
flare was
seen through a fairly thin cover of clouds. Duration of
pass: 4.2 seconds
This was the second half of a predicted pass of two(2);
Iridium 34, and
Iridium 35. This would have been my first two in series, but
cloud cover
prevented the first pass from being sighted! Some day!!
Cloud cover was a constant problem at this location, and indeed did prevent
the
sighting of other flares predicted for this period.
On another curious note, a predicted flare of Iridium 20 for this location on
07.11.01
at 04:52PDT(11:52UT) was not sighted, however, at 04:54PDT, a very fast moving
object did flare. The speed of this object startled me, and I failed to stop
my stop
watch quickly, so the duration noted is only approximate.
Magnitude: -3 Duration of pass: < 1.0 seconds. Direction of pass: S
to N
The altitude of this object was lower than the predicted Iridium pass by 10
to 15deg
I have not been able to find any other possible identification for this
object so far.
The problem I am having with this beeing Iridium 20 is the speed at which
this object passed. I'm still novice at this, but I have not yet seen a
predicted flare that
passed with the speed of a meteor. I have ruled out a meteor due to the manor
in
which this object flared, from a pinpoint of light, to a -3 flare, to a
pinpoint of light.
Any thoughts on this? I'm baffled!
Thanks in advance,
R.(Robert) Morgan
Carson City, Nevada. USA
39deg 11mni N 119deg 45min W
elev. 1430m(4700ft).
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jul 13 2001 - 07:01:05 PDT