Iridium 21 FLARE!

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Philip Chien wrote:

<snip>

>My theory is its possible to get unpredictable flares off of the
>non-operational satellites.  After all they've got the same MMA antennas,
>just not pointed in a very predictable orientation.

<snip>


I would like to add to this that on 10/23/97  at 19:48 PDT
 Don Boggs (in Seattle,Washington) and I (in Tacoma, Washington) observed
the flare off of Iridium 21 predicted by Rob Matson's IRIDFLAR. 

>From my site in Tacoma, the flare (mirror) angle was predicted to be
4.41 degrees with a flare magnitude of 1.1. The flare was anomalous 
in that regard - the brightness was comparable (or larger) to that of
Jupiter (right now at about mag. -2).

Let's not abandon Ir-21 just yet. Systematic observations may allow us to
predict when it will flare.


FYI

Seattle, WA: LAT: 47.65N  LONG: 122.31W
Tacoma, WA: LAT: 47.26N LONG: 122.48W  





_________________________________________

Dr. Bernard Bates
Physics Department
University of Puget Sound
Tacoma, WA 98416
(253) 756-3762

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