Iridium flare pair was single
Bjoern Gimle (bjorn@tt-tech.se)
Thu, 23 Oct 1997 12:27:19 +0100
Early Monday evening I tried this flare pair (times are UT+2) :
11 97-10-20 17:57:47.0 191.6 49.2 18h35 18.9 978.7 D Lit -4.2 4.86 2.1
11 97-10-20 17:58: 4.3 189.3 43.6 18h40 13.1 1055.9 D Lit -4.2 0.04 -5.5
11 97-10-20 17:58:25.0 187.4 37.9 18h44 7.3 1158.3 D Lit -4.2 4.84 2.4
13 97-10-20 17:58:12.0 191.2 49.2 18h37 18.8 997.9 D Lit -4.2 4.77 2.1
13 97-10-20 17:58:29.4 189.0 43.7 18h41 13.1 1075.4 D Lit -4.2 0.17 -5.4
13 97-10-20 17:58:50.0 187.1 38.0 18h46 7.4 1177.0 D Lit -4.3 4.73 2.4
Only Irdm 13 was seen, and it was brilliant. It was behind a tree top, but
so easy to see, that I shouldn't have missed Irdm 11.
Furthermore, a friend of mine at Latitude: 59.55 Longitude: 18.16
saw only one of them (no exact timing)
I seem to recall another report of one expected flare missing,
but couldn't locate it.
We could expect missing predicted flares, or finding unexpected ones,
from Irdm 27 and/or 36, if they have attitude control problems, but
they also give us additional chances of seeing flare pairs, before a
new cluster is launched.
When I said that all others are at MM=14.34, I forgot no.11,
with MM=14.39, 16 km below the others, and no.21.
Orbital spares, and/or not properly controlled? Iridium 11 is not mentioned
on the http://www.satellite.eu.org/iridium.html pge, but the
other three are.
Did anyone observe it according to predictions recently ?
Ron's table in /iridrpt.html is not updated further than Sep.30.
Iridium 11 3.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 d 762 x 761 km
1 24842U 97030G 97293.01511110 .00001206 00000-0 38347-3 0 1347
2 24842 86.3887 110.3241 0001025 134.8669 225.2605 14.39174125 17804
Iridium 21 3.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 d 643 x 629 km
1 24873U 97034E 97293.09673593 .00000444 00000-0 58116-4 0 885
2 24873 86.3959 139.6633 0010195 243.8230 116.1940 14.77905104 15146
Iridium 27 3.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 d 564 x 549 km
1 24947U 97051D 97294.77213122 -.00011391 00000-0 -83964-3 0 748
2 24947 86.6403 46.1990 0010689 123.9198 236.3051 15.03506702 5689
Iridium 36 3.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 d 567 x 546 km
1 24967U 97056C 97294.44706286 -.00023161 00000-0 -17086-2 0 375
2 24967 86.7020 78.2999 0014897 148.5064 211.7122 15.03436917 3664
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