Iridium flares, new & corrected

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Thu, 02 Oct 1997 19:32:39 -0400

Two new reports, two corrections

New flare reports (I'm using place-holders due to the display 
problems on the hypermail archive.  I love the hypermail archive!  
I just wish it did not kill the layouts people create in their 
text-based e-mail programs.  All it would take to fix that would
be to enclose the messages in <PRE></PRE> tags....):

NORAD __date__ __time__Dir aI eI aM_ eM aS_ _eS Phs Du Ma Obs COSPAR
nnnnn yy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss I nnn nn nnn nn nnn -nn nnn nn Sn III yynnnp

Iridium 12, Tuesday evening
24837 97-10-01 01:26:00 S 152 44 084 67 276 -16 135 15 -1 EdC 97 30B

Iridium 16, Wednesday evening
24841 97-10-02 01:19:30 S 142 52 084 66 274 -15 127 30 +1 EdC 97 30F

Corrections:

Iridium 10, Monday evening

Wrong:
NORAD __date__ __time__ D azI eI azM eM azS _eS Phs Dur Mag Obs COSPAR Ir
24838 97/09/30 01:31:35 S 135 60 084 69 277 -17 129 >10 -2f EdC 97 30C 10

Better:
24838 97/09/30 01:31:59 S 144 55 084 69 277 -17 128 >10 -2 EdC 97 30C

That was due to me trying to see my analog watch in the dark while also
trying to see the flare at the same time!  Mike McCants saw it from a 
few km away and recorded the brightest part of it as being from 1:32:05 
to 1:32:12.  I counted ten seconds *after* I realized I ought to try to 
estimate the duration.

Iridium ?, Sept. 24 (UT)

This is the "again...groan" correction that I posted to SeeSat a few
days ago after Rob Matson and Sue Worden both pointed out to me that I 
had the date wrong.  Now Randy John has told me that the one on the 
archive has the wrong date, which means that my posted date correction 
did not get incorporated into the archived report at: 

http://www2.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/sat/iridrpt.html

Wrong (on archive):
24837 97-09-23 01:58:50 S 131 48 084 57 282 -21 145 02 -6 EdC 97030B
........... ^^

Right:
24837 97-09-24 01:58:50 S 131 48 084 57 282 -21 145 02 -6 EdC 97030B
........... ^^

Last night after observing I tried out ("beta testing") Randy John's 
Iridium flare prediction program, and it reported a 3-degree mirror 
angle during the time of last night's flare.  (Really bright ones 
require a much smaller angle.)  It looks like a useful program,
especially for those who like to use sky maps.

Time to go observing....

Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA