I stepped outside in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the newly launched NOAA 17 but just before it was to arrive, those pesky clouds came in so i went back inside. When i looked out the patio window 20 min later at 06:35:0x 3 July UTC i saw a very bright object, est mag -3 to the NW, Az approx 330 deg El 20-25 deg. No bright star is in that area at that time and this one was moving to the NW so it was a sat. It's track indicating it was coming from the SSE. I was able to ID it as ASTEX #05560 71089A and i've seen it flare before. A couple of minutes later i spotted Irid Breeze Rk #27452 02031C as passed to the East of Polaris, i used my 10x50s at first but then saw it at 1x as it reached an elevation of 79 deg, Az 86 deg. 4 min later at 06:41 i picked up Ir 98 ? #27451 02031B in my FOV, fairly easily as it too was to the East of my location, Az 84 deg El 83 deg. However at 06:48 i looked for but did not see Ir97 ? #27450 02031A, it's track was to the West and there were clouds in the way as well. I've seen the new Irids and their rocket several times but never all three on the same pass, usually 2 out of the 3. The previous night i had a predicted -8 flare of Ir 97 ? but cloudy skies got in the way. Jari 49.40N 125.00W 30m ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 03 2002 - 03:34:52 EDT