Hi All, This message is to congratulate Ron Lee on his third successful observation of a lunar Iridium flare this past weekend. A lunar glint off a satellite is one of the rarest types of satellite observation that can be made, and thanks to his diligence Ron has three under his belt! (Bright lunar glints are probably more rare than bright satellite transits of the moon). > I was concerned that it might not be close to the expected magnitude of > 7 since the moon was just past first quarter. Actually, the predicted magnitude was +8.0 according to IRIDFLAR 2.1. > I am going to estimate that it was 8th magnitude...possibly brighter. That's great! Since you were essentially on the centerline, the fact that the flare reached (or perhaps slightly exceeded) 8th magnitude says that the new lunar phase function in IRIDFLAR is quite accurate. > I also imagined that the brightness varied a bit but cannot state that it was > a true effect. It was almost certainly a real effect -- as the MMA reflected different portions of the moon, you would have seen brightness variation from the Moon's non-uniform surface radiance, not to mention the effect of crossing the terminator. In this type of observation, Iridium acts like a line scanner, giving you a single scan line of a chord across the moon's disk. With full moon approaching, the next week is the time to look for lunar Iridium flares. Can anyone else match Ron's feat? Cheers, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Jun 12 2000 - 13:30:46 PDT