On Sat, 20 Dec 1997, Jeff Hunt wrote: > Observed my first (brighter than mag -4.5) predicted mag. -6.0 flare this > morning on Dec 20 at 11:21:48 UT (06:21:48 local) with the Sun at -10.6 I did this on Dec 18. I was under a cloudless sky and pretty much on the center line (reflection angle 0.02 deg) for Iridium 24. It was also had a high elevation of 67 deg and range of only 840 km. It was significantly brighter than Venus and had a noticeable halo around it. I don't feel I can adequately judge how bright it was without having something to compare it against. I would guess somewhere in the -8 to -10 range (though I know others have figured -9 is about the limit). Two things struck me as unusual about this event. First is the more rapid-- compared to other flares I've seen--rise and fall of the brightness. Second is that I perceived a discontinuous drop in brightness after maximum. I'm wondering if this was when the antenna quit the direct reflection of the Sun and was left with just the specular reflection. Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series: Southwest Research Institute /R---\ | Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort."