Can someone tell me what I saw?

From: Art Glick (omb00900@mail.wvnet.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 13 2002 - 10:56:07 EDT

  • Next message: Ted Molczan: "96072A not seen on second pass"

    Howdy All,
    
    I hope you listers don't mind if someone like me, who does not have the 
    time to get serious about this hobby (beyond the limits of H-A) makes ID 
    requests like this from time to time.
    
    Last night, after our bi-monthly Thursday night poker game, I was standing 
    in the yard of a friend, with a pal that shares an interest in astronomy 
    (and also owns an 8" Schmitt, like myself), talking about viewing deep 
    space objects as we both had our heads tilted up into our wonderful +6 West 
    Virginia skies when we saw a couple of very bright flashes, apparently from 
    a LEO, despite the very late hour.
    
    The first one I noticed had to be -1 or -2, the second less than 10 degrees 
    distant and no more than 1 mag dimmer, and I might have seen a third flash, 
    too, although it couldn't have been much brighter than +4.  These were 
    strobe like flashes, and not flares, like I described seeing last month on 
    this list from SPOT 3.
    
    The time was approximately 1:42 AM (I don't take my stopwatch to poker!), 
    the azimuth was approximately NE and the altitude about 65 to 70 by my best 
    guess (the neighbor's yard is surrounded by tall trees, so I was not quite 
    properly oriented).
    
    My own location is at lat=38.067, long=-80.434, 2950' Elevation, and my 
    neighbor lives about 2 miles SE of here at about the same elevation.  I 
    apologize for the extremely rough nature of these details, but like I said, 
    I'm a casual observer, and I wasn't even looking from a familiar location.
    
    As I keep saying, the level of expertise exhibited by most of the regular 
    posters to this list is light years beyond my own capabilities.  I'll bet 
    someone out there on this list can tell me what we saw.
    
    I look forward to hearing from someone regarding this sighting.
    
    Best Regards,
    
    Art Glick
    
    
    
    Almost Heaven Group
    HC 67  Box 539 BB
    Renick  WV  24966
    Phone 304-497-2610
    Fax 304-497-2698
    e-mail   art@almostheaven.net
    http://www.almostheaven.net/
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