Iridium 19 and the Moon; and SERT 2 flare
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 02:54:30 -0500
Given that the previous two nights were cloudy and that I
started out Tuesday with back problems and then later got a
flu shot, Tuesday evening turned out fairly fortuitous.
Before seeing the other flasher near Gorizont 23, I was
lucky enough to see two other very neat things.
First, at about 1:16 UTC (20 October), not too far above the
Moon there was a very bright flare of Iridium 19 (24965,
97-56A). This one rivaled the Moon in brightness, and then
it became obvious that it was going to go VERY close to the
Moon. So I quickly looked in binoculars and observed it, at
about mag. +4 (?) and going mostly down but a little to the
right also, pass extremely near the dark limb of the Moon,
if not in front of it!
Then about 1:52 I happened to see an extra +2.5 star beside
Polaris. It stayed one-power for a minute or so, and then I
watched it in binoculars for another couple of minutes as it
moved slowly downward and slightly to the left (retrograde).
SERT 2 (04327, 79-9A) seems to be a very good match.
The observing location was 30.3068N, 97.7267W, 150m.
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
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