Re:Ir 24 truly unreliable

Philip Chien (grc@spica.usno.navy.mil)
Mon, 30 Mar 98 20:43:23 -0500 

We were supposed to see a mag -1.3 flare of Ir-24 this evening (31 Mar 00:41:50
UTC) here in Washington, DC.  We had a very nice bright pass of Mir, a decent
pass of Lacrosse 2, and another nice pass of Cosmos 2082 Rk, all observed from
the roof of the Observatory, and all passing through the stars of Leo.  At the
appointed time for Ir-24...nothing!  I've seen several flashes of similar
predicted brightness from other Iridiums (Iridii??) in this part of the sky, and
they've all shown up on time and in the appointed place.  This one was
definitely MIA...

TTFN & Clear skies,
Geoff

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| Geoff Chester      grc@spica.usno.navy.mil       Public  Affairs Office |
|                                                    US Naval Observatory |
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____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Ir 24 truly unreliable 
Author: <SeeSat-L@cds.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de>
Date:       29-Mar-98 6:54 AM


Yesterday evening (19h02m38s TU) a friend of mine,
Sandro Baroni from Milano,Italy (45,46N  9,12E),
failed to observe the monster flare of -8.4 from
Iridium 24. Baroni is'nt a SeeSat member but I often
prepare Iridflar predictions for him and for some
other italian observers, in order to check the
behaviour of Iridium satellites. So we can confirm
that, at the moment, Ir 24 is "truly unreliable", as
Ed Cannon has already reported.
Cheers, 
Franco Foresta Martin, Roma, Italy.


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