Iridium flare seen in England
Ron Lee (ronlee@pcisys.net)
Mon, 01 Sep 1997 15:40:21
Just saw this in the sci.astro.amateur newsgroup:
Last night (26 Aug 197) at 21.22 UTC I saw something I couldn't identify,
and I wonder if anyone has a clue. There was a bright object at about the
southeast border of Cassiopeia. Over a space of a few seconds it grew
brighter to about mag -5 to -6 (although I'm *hopeless* at estimating
magnitudes) -- it was quite a bit brighter than Venus at its brightest. It
then rapidly faded beyond naked eye visibility over a period of, say, 15
seconds. It was as it was fading that I saw that it was moving slowly
southeast. The direction was suggestive of a polar orbit satellite, but the
speed was much slower that other polar orbit satellites I have seen. To the
naked eye there was no sign of any ionisation trail that I have observed
with bright meteors. There was no discernible aircraft noise.
My location was approx 51 deg 30' N, 2 deg 20' W.
Any (sensible) ideas, anybody?
Steve South
in the almost standard format :)
Sat Sat Sun Flare Obs Sun Phase NORAD #
UT Dir AZ EL AZ EL Dur Mag UT Pass Az/El
21:22 08/26/97 S 056 31 315 -18 15 -4 SS 0 Unk 75 31 24837
Ron Lee
Makes you wonder if we will hear UFO reports because of the Iridium flares.