Landsat 4 Flare???

Tom Smith (tska@deltanet.com)
Tue, 31 Mar 1998 04:29:09 +0100

Tonight I observed a flare (glint, whatever) which *might* have been Landsat
4 (NORAD 13367).   It was at 31 March 1998 03:48:43 UTC (Monday evening
local time), at approx az 175, el 25, moving south to north, at least as
bright as magnitude 0, plain white color.   At first I thought it was an
Iridium, but Skysat and Iridflar don't list anything likely.   It looked
like an Iridium (took a few seconds to brighten, was brightest for 1-2
seconds, then faded out of visibility in a few seconds).   Using SatSpy 2.5,
the closest match seems to be Landsat 4.   Minimum observable magnitude is
about 3.5, due to heavy light pollution.

Tom Smith
Anaheim, California, USA
117.9717 W  33.8423 N