Flashes, Glint and Flare

finn@main.jetnet.ab.ca
Tue, 4 Aug 1998 01:14:30 -0600 (MDT)

Despite a bit of haze and the moon being out i was able to get some good
sightings:

Cosmos 2360 r - i don't have a stop watch but i was able to time the flashes
by counting. I got up to 2 thousand an... so the rough period between
flashes was 2.5 - 2.75 seconds. 04:35 UTC was the time it passed by. 

Iridium 27 - i was able to pick it up at 04:53 UTC with my 10x50s, then
tried with 1x and saw 2 -4 mag flashes within a couple of seconds of each
other. 

Cosmos 1626 - while looking for this and unable to spot it, i saw a -2 mag
glint along it's projected path at 05:05:34 +-5 sec UTC 4 Aug at a 70 degree
elevation towards the south. No other visible sightings were made.

UNK - at 05:44:03 +- 5 sec UTC i saw a flare to the East North East at
approx 40 degrees elevation that lasted for about 2 seconds. I was able to
pick up the object with my 10x50s as it headed towards the North. From it's
track it looked like it came from the East South East and it looked like
there was a slight variation in it's magnitude so it may have been a
tumbler. I tried to ID it later on but no luck. 

I tried to find USA 116 between 06:00 and 06:06 UTC but nothing. However 11
other sats were seen so a good night was had.

Jari
54.25N
110.11W
556m