Several days ago Rob Matson alerted me to another good Iridium flare using moonlight as the source. Initial conditions made it look similar to the first one I saw over a year ago. It was high in the southern sky with the moon almost setting. It was also at the sleep robbing time of 2:10 AM MDT local (810 UT). This time I elected to stay up. After setting up the telescope, digital setting circles, I went to a easy to find star nearby and star hopped to the expected location. I was ready 10 minutes early and my eyes were well dark adapted. I was concerned that it might not be close to the expected magnitude of 7 since the moon was just past first quarter. The actual time of the flare was 2:10:17.6 local so I made a final adjustment of the scope location at 2:10:00 and on time a relatively bright Iridium flare (using moonlight) came passing through. I am going to estimate that it was 8th magnitude...possibly brighter. It might have been visible in binoculars. The other interesting thing is that this was the first that I saw during the entire passage through the field of view. I also imagined that the brightness varied a bit but cannot state that it was a true effect. The flare occurred about a minute after entering Earth shadow. The satellite was iridium 42 (#25077). I am at 104.5614 W, 38.9478 N, 2073 meters. Ron Lee ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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