>... a brilliant flare/flash across the eastern sky. >(Through Pegasus ) > >... like ... an enormous Iridium flare , about 2 degrees >in length travelling north/south ( unlike an Iridium there >was a definite impression of movement) What are the chances that it was a very bright, slow-moving, very oblique meteoric fireball? How long did it last? For the Americas (currently) Galaxy 7(92-072A, 22205) is a very reliable, if slow, flashing geosynch. Two or three nights this week I've seen eight one-power flashes, the brightest about +1.5. Last night I saw four or five in spite of it being partly cloudy. It is between 2:00 and 3:00 UTC -- 9:00 and 10:00 CDT tonight, but 8:00 and 9:00 beginning tomorrow night. For maybe 20 minutes during the middle of the episode, all of the alternating flashes are visible in binoculars every 102.25 or so seconds. At the beginning and end, only every other one -- 204.50 seconds. On October 24, about 3:40-4:00 UTC, ETS 6 (94-056A, 23230) was *easily* visible in binoculars with some maxima observable one-power, at a range of well over 24,000 km. Flash period was about 9.4 seconds. At 4:30 UTC I was not able to find it. I've failed to mention spectacular flashes from Iridium 920 (97-034C, 24871) lately, at least two groups separated by up to a minute of invisibility. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 25 2003 - 17:24:21 EDT