STARSHINE FLASH DESCRIPTIONS

MALEY, PAUL D. (paul.d.maley1@jsc.nasa.gov)
Thu, 24 Jun 1999 06:50:49 -0500

YK Chia wrote:

        a) Where can I  find a summary or tally sheet of flash
brightness , flash peroid of the starshine observations submitted to
date so that I can have a feel what I will be dealing with.

        b) Can the flashes themselves be predicted (rather than the main
body)? All my observation  ''windows''   are miserable < mag 9.0!

        c) Any dark-sky challenged folks or city dweller seen this??
Binos?


    >>>I will answer them in reverse order:
c) Flashes have been observed from the city at +0 magnitude brightest. The
flashes are instantaneous and you have to be looking right at them to see
them.

b) It is made more difficult by the fact that the flashes are unpredictable
at this time.The background brightness without flashes is +7 under good
phase conditions to below +9 at worse phases.

a) to get a feel for what to expect, you should consider looking at the
entire arc of a STARSHINE pass, possibly using Chris Peat's marvelous online
chart capability from GSOC. The flashes may appear (or not appear) at any
point in the arc. There is no apparent flash period at this time since they
are reported to occur at random times. The number of flashes reported to
this point range from 0 (on a direct overhead pass) to 7 on a 50 degree
elevation pass. Intervals between flashes are highly variable ranging from
about 5 seconds at the shortest interval to over a minute for the longest
interval.

Paul
Paul D. Maley

tel. 281-244-0208; fax: 281-244-1140
email: paul.d.maley1@jsc.nasa.gov
latitude 29.6049 north, longitude 95.1086 west, elev 6m