No Iridium 21 flare seen tonight (Nov 6, 1997)

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I drove tonight to roughly 120.3 W, 34.5 N to try and spot an Iridium 21
flare transit the moon.  The transit and flare would have occured around
0137 UT Nov 7.  I had my 10 X 50 binoculars aimed just above the moon for a
few minutes surrounding the expected flare time.  I saw nothing.  I
expected I would at least see Iridium 21 at around Magnitude 6, but I
didn't even see that.  The sun was only 7 degrees below the horizon.

Is there any pattern of consistancy regarding Iridium 21 and the other 3
"unpredictable" Iridiums?  Are there certain conditions under which they
give predictable flares?

Aaron
http://eci.ucsb.edu/~asb
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~asb
asb@eci.ucsb.edu
 34.42 N
119.89 W

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