I have not had any response to my query so far. However I have done a web search and can find no mention of any flares in such close proximity since 1999! There are a few reports of double flares but these have been much greater than 1 second apart. I would also appreciate it if someone could calculate the separation in km or miles - it seems from the respective orbits that it may have been less than 100 km. I guess I should have stated my elevation in feet or metres but as it was zero it makes no difference. It was definitely zero as I was standing on the waterfront a few feet from the water and had to be careful while skywatching that I did not fall in! Robert Holdsworth (coordinates below.) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Holdsworth" <robbonz1@xtra.co.nz> To: "Seesat Explosive Address" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 10:19 PM Subject: Simultaneous Iridium flares > This evening 25 March at 20:15 local (UTC plus 12) I observed with the naked > eye simultaneous Iridium flares from a location at Wellington waterfront > (41.2861 S; 174.779 E at 0 degrees elevation.) > > These were from Iridium 28 1997-051-E and Iridium 94 2002-005-C > > Although I did not have an accurate means of timekeeping, the flare times > according to Heavens Above were 20:18:38 for I.94 and 20:18:39 for I.28 > respectively. To the naked eye they appeared to brighten and diminish at > exactly the same time. > > Azimuth of both was 174 degrees- predicted magnitude of I.94 was -7 as > against -3 for I.28, and respective altitudes were predicted as 25 degrees > and 22 degrees. Ground tracks were very similar. > > I was only 2.6 km from the flare centre for Iridium 94, as against 17.8 km > for Iridium 28. I did notice that the higher flare was brighter, though I > would not have said it was such a marked difference in magnitude as that > predicted. The sky was clear but being very close to the central city area > there was considerable background light though it caused little difficulty > with the observation. > > I would be interested to know how rare or otherwise sightings of > simultaneous flares are. > > (Flares were predicted here at 20:31 and 20:32 on 23 March local from > Iridium 33 and 91 respectively but unfortunately I was not able to attempt > an observation at that time.) > > Robert Holdsworth > Wainuiomata > New Zealand > 41.26100S, 174.94700E > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' > in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org > List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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