Iridium 13 flare

Alexander Seidel (Alexander.Seidel@t-online.de)
Mon, 1 Sep 97 13:45 MET DST

I saw Iridium 13 (97-30 E, #24840) on an evening southbound pass flaring up to 
at least mag -0.5 last night. 

Dates unformatted:	1997/08/31 UTC 20:24:12 (at aquisition, near flare max.)
			Sat position at that time: Az 59 deg, El 43 deg
			Sun position at that time: Az 313.3 deg, El -17.5 deg	
			Flare duration: must have been > 5 sec
			Flare magnitude: -0.5 mag (or brighter)
			My position: N 53.5932 deg, E 9.4683 deg, 6m ASL
(PS: sorry, I am still not familiar with the "official" reporting format...).

The sat may have even been brighter for a few seconds, as when I first spotted 
it at UTC 20:24:12, it had just cleared the edge of my neighbour4s house, which 
had blocked the view before. Then it was still visible for approx. 5 seconds, 
before rapidly fading down to invisibility for the naked eyes.

Note: this observation, in terms of azimuth and elevation of both sun and sat, 
fairly well fits to Leo Barhorst4s flare sighting which he posted yesterday for 
another one of those Irdiums! 

Greetings, Alex