Superbird A - my first sighting

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Thanks Rob Matson and Robert Sheaffer for your info on Superbird A.
After reading about it and trying to spot it a few times with no success
because of uncertainty of exact location and times, finally I succeeded
Tues. night (Wed UTC) a couple of min. each side of 03:44 UTC.  It was
an interesting side-show to my Hale-Bopp excursion to just north of
Castaic.  It was just a little (perhaps 2 finger widths) to the left and
above 
the most easterly star in Orion's belt.  Several bright flashes and a few
dimmer ones were seen.  I pointed it out to a couple of other comet
watchers.  Sorry for the layman's wording but it might help someone else
see it.  Note as Rob stated that "peak times are 1 or 2 min. later each
susequent night..." and that times vary for other locations.  I'm not at all
certain that the peak was 3:44 UTC, only that I started looking a couple
of min. before that time.  Everything I saw was naked eye.  Although I
tried to look with 7x35 binoculars, apparently the field-of-view was
incorrect
and I missed a couple of flashes.

Jake Rees
Burbank, California

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