Long March observed?

Gunnar Glitscher (GGlitscher@t-online.de)
Sat, 12 Jun 1999 01:25:38 +0200

Hi all,

during a star party this evening we observed a bright and fast flasher in an
obviously very low orbit. The object moved west to east just south of Arcturus,
made its way through the southern parts of Hercules and entered Cygnus. The
brightness varied rapidly from +1 mag to +5. The lightcurves pattern was very 
complex but not irregular with varying maxima spaced by 2 to 4 seconds. One had 
the impression of a body tumbling around more than one axis. Have never seen 
before such an impressive flasher!

Date: June 11, 1999, Time: 21:50 UT +-2 minutes (sorry, no better timing 
possible because of circumstances), Location: Darmstadt-Eberstadt, Germany,
+49.9N,8.6E, 120m.

Is it possible that we observed the Long March upper stage of todays Iridium
launch before its reentry?? Are there more passes over Europe before reentry?

Cheers,
Gunnar