RETRACTION re: Iridium 911 flashing like mad

From: Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 30 2001 - 18:55:16 PST

  • Next message: finn@main.jetnet.ab.ca: "Ir 38 a Tumbler?"

    My face is red, and I must offer apologies to Jeff and all!  
    
    There's no doubt that Iridium 911 is a very nicely flashing 
    object (which I just saw a few minutes ago), but whatever I saw 
    Thursday evening (local) was not Iridium 911.  The flashing 
    object was northbound, and Iridium 911 is making southbound 
    passes over here right now.  Due to being tired and/or in a 
    hurry when I was trying to figure it out, I failed to register 
    Ir 911's direction of travel.  I actually had another nagging 
    doubt last night, that the object I saw was too low in the sky 
    to be Iridium 911.
    
    So since I can't find any other satellite in the right place at 
    the right time going the right direction, here's a question to 
    aeronautical specialists out there:  do any aircraft strobes 
    (white) flash at 50 cycles/minute (i.e., every 1.2 seconds)?
    
    By the way, Iridium 911's period a few minutes ago appeared to
    be something like 7.5 seconds, but I got some subcycles on the 
    order of two or three seconds.
    
    Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
    
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