UNIDS
Jan Vansteelandt (Jan.Vansteelandt@agr.kuleuven.ac.be)
Wed, 29 Oct 97 13:15:39 +0200
Yesterday evening, I was called by an amateur astronomer who had seen
two very bright satellite flares (mag -5) moving parallel at the night sky.
My first thought was Iridiums, but calculations with
IRIDFLAR showed that this wasn't the case.
This was the observation:
Observers place: (Ypres, Belgium)
2degrees53' E
50degrees49' N
Time: around 20h55 UT (97-10-28)
Brightness: both satellites were mag -5 (minus 5 !!!) during about
6 or7seconds after discovery
Sats were seperated 3 degrees
Position of sats: around 17-18h RA and 40 dec (5 degrees from Wega)
Moving from NNW towards SSE
I also ran my prediction software (only objects in the BWGS-program list)
and came out on one candidate:
85-23J (#15625) Kosmos
Is it possible that this object generates such a flare?
What was the other object??
Regards,
Jan Vansteelandt