Iridium MMA1 flare at 3000 km range
Floyd Weaver (fweaver@nbn.net)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 03:27:07 -0500 (EST)
Tonight I have sucsessfully sited three MMA 1 flares from three
Iridiums. Has anyone else seen any?
Here are the stats(not quite in correct format)
ir NORAD --date-- --time-- D Faz Fe Saz --Se- range angl mag
13 24840 11-05-97 22:44:xx S 276 06 2xx -08.6 2650k 0.09 >1 97030E FW
14 24836 11-05-97 22:53:xx S 278 04 2xx -10.3 2835k 0.30 >1 97030A FW
16 24841 11-05-97 23:02:xx S 279 02 2xx -12.0 3025k 0.59 2 97030F FW
The above data was from Rob Matson Iridflar program. Randy John's
Skysat gave a phase angle of 156. I am being conservative on the
magnitudes, though they did not come up to the predicted mag. There was
one star to the right ten or so degrees and just
under ten degree elv. This star was visible all the time, but as I do not
know, nor have checked the mag of this star I cannot give better values.
The first two flares were as bright or maybe slightly brighter than that
star. The last flare was dimmer by an estimated one mag. The sky was still
quite bright in that section of the sky. I was having a hard time to read
my paper without a flash light, after sighting ir14.
Also saw an UNID travleing form NW to SE over the north star and
just above Cassapia(sp), steadily flucuatuing from mag 3 to near mag 0. In
the east it gave bluish flare almost as bright as Jupiter. Jupiter was a
yellow light compared to this flare.
Floyd Weaver
3 miles north of Lebanon Pa.
40.389N 76.417W
http://users.nbn.net/~fweaver