Last night our time was my first opportunity to see a descending node pass of the ISS other than the one reported earlier when seen with the shuttle in close proximity. Most of our available passes till now have been ascending node, but cloud and/or inconvenient times have prevented observation other than the one also reported when a meteor was seen. Until now I had been reading the reports in Heavens Above of very high mags and visibility through clouds with a little surprise. However at 0800 UTC on a patchy sky just at twilight the ISS emerged from the clouds just about at its maximum elevation and was as bright as some of the best Iridium flares. It certainly reached mag -4 or so, I hesitate to say -6 but it is possible it was that good. It was almost steady magnitude and decreased gradually, no flaring observed, just the slightest flicker for all of the pass, but as the first half of the pass was obscured by cloud it is not known whether any flaring could have occurred. With mags already this good and further additions to the station to come the predictions of daylight visibility may not be too far off the mark, certainly dusk or dawn ones will be spectacular. The orange coloration was visible just after it emerged from the cloud but then for the rest of the pass it appeared more white. Robert Holdsworth Wainuiomata New Zealand 41.261S 174,948E ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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