Iridium flare programs
Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Sat, 4 Oct 1997 11:32:18 +0100
Yesterday I observed flares predicted by Rob Matson's program, and
compared with the output from Randy John's program.
Ir13 10/3 17:04:05 el 57 6.9 / .76
Ir14 10/3 17:13:10 el 62 0.9 / .70 !! extremely bright
Ir15 10/3 18:30:10 el 39 7.4 / .90
Ir18 10/3 18:39:25 el 44 3.1 / .91
Ir20 10/3 18:48:35 el 50 2.3 / .90 !! very bright
Though the weather was not very good, I concentrated on taking
pictures and using our home video camera, so I have no accurate
timings or magnitude estimates.
However, the flash positions agree very well with the predicted
positions at Rob's times, and although I could not change RJ's
default 10-second intervals, his angles appear to be within a
few 1/10 degrees. I have some additional comments to RJ, but my
replies to his mail ( Return-Path: <RJ@MS.RIEM.com> ) bounced.
Please give me a correct address.
My estimate of flare magnitudes is that the relative brightnesses
agree with the angles predicted. The bright one (-3?) was not as
bright as my Ir6 on Oct.1 morning. The others were easy 1-power,
except the first, when sun was -6.8
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