Iridium 20, etc.
Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Mon, 15 Jun 1998 01:52:58 -0500
Sunday evening (15 June UTC) from outside my apartment (poor
location -- lots of nearby bright lights!), about 30.3086N,
97.7279W, 150m.
Iridium 20 (24871, a.k.a. 18) -- two episodes of consecutive
one-power flashes -- nine flashes that ended at about 3:28:31
(plus/minus 5 seconds [The next episode caused me to forget if
the end of the first episode was 28:26 or 28:36!] and 13 of 15
flashes (that is, two weren't seen) that ended about 3:30:05.
Iridiums 39 and 42, flares as predicted by Iridflar.
USA 81 (21949, 92-23A), sparkled to about +2 near culmination
(alt. 80, azi. 276). I think it was late, but I was showing it
to a neighbor and didn't get any sort of timing. (Having seen
it before in Mike McCants' telescope, I strongly recommend this
one; it's really, really neat when the sparkles are seen with
magnification!)
Mir VDU (25294, 86-17MQ), possibly as bright as +3. (Seen at
least once before at one-power.)
Nice Mir pass into shadow, showed it also to a neighbor.
Ed Cannon -- ecannon@mail.utexas.edu -- Austin, Texas, USA