3 Iridiums Sunday morning 16 Nov 1997
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Mon, 17 Nov 1997 03:02:22 -0600
Sunday morning, 16 Nov 1997, I observed 3 one-power Iridium flares
in less than four minutes; two were from the most recent launch.
(Until about 36 hours beforehand, we had predictions for *six* in
an even smaller time span -- but it was not to be. Three of the
them were moved a lot and ended up going 3 or 4 degrees farther
west.) I didn't drive far enough for any of these to reach
"whopper" magnitude, and I didn't get a good fix on maximum
magnitudes; maybe about -1, 0, +1 (or one magnitude fainter?).
I'm not sure what report format is being used now, if any. Time
is UTC. Duration is for one-power observability (with the Moon
nearly full).
11:46:38, Iridium 38, at least 30 seconds (missed the beginning)
11:48:03, Iridium 40, at least 38 seconds
11:50:12, Iridium 17, at least 32 seconds
Observed from Mt. Bonnell, Austin, Texas -- 30.321, -97.773, 275m.
By the way, I believe these are the correct designations for the
newest ones (including a "Year 2000" version of COSPAR):
NORAD COSPAR Common Nam COSPAR2K
----- ------ ---------- --------
25039 97069A Iridium 43 1997069A
25040 97069B Iridium 41 1997069B
25041 97069C Iridium 40 1997069C
25042 97069D Iridium 39 1997069D
25043 97069E Iridium 38 1997069E
Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA