Finally managed to do some observing for the first time in a few weeks
on Saturday (29/4). One object I was particularly keen to see was
24949 IRIDIUM 30 which was predicted to flare around 21:38UT. This
was the first flare I've seen for ages and it was unusual - it became
visible on time in the North East and gradually brightened over a
period of some 20 seconds to around magnitude -1 after which it faded,
again taking around 20 seconds to fade to invisibility at which point
I tracked it to eclipse in binoculars. I've never seen a flare that
lasted so long! Is this common or just a feature of the Motorola
situation?
Also observed the same night ...
26062 OCS - made a nice high elevation pass. It was definitely
fluctuating in magnitude between 3 and 4 - this is a spherical object
with I assume a fairly uniform surface - why the fluctuations?
20692 NOSS 2-1D - around mag 7, first time I have seen this object.
It was faint even in my (v. old!) 16x50s and I couldn't find any
other components of the trio.
25994 TERRA - This object moved S-N directly overhead - it was a
bright mag 2 then suddenly faded when it was overhead to mag 3.5 - 4,
and remained at that magnitude until eclipse.
Whilst looking out for the Ir30 flare I saw to sats lowish in the East
going N-S and close together, later I identified these as
23405 COSMOS 22976 r and 11269 COSMOS 1077 r.
Also saw high elevation passes of 13154 COSMOS 1356 r and 13121 COSMOS
1346 r.
Aurora fans look out - high activity last night and the next couple of
days have auroral storm warnings due to a mass coronal ejection
released from the sun on April 30th.
Matt Fawcett 53.893N 0.273W
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