Iridium?

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 07 Nov 1997 02:37:52 -0600

This was not an Iridium flare, but I'm wondering if it was
some other Iridium phenomenon.  At about 1:17 UT on 5 Nov
(6:17 PM CST Tuesday 4 Nov local -- possible time error not
certain), my father, in San Antonio, Texas (29.40N, 98.64W), 
"saw a bright satellite moving north to south.  It passed 
by Jupiter by two finger widths to the east and was maybe 
twice as bright at Jupiter," my sister tells me.  The 
closest to the time and position given appears to be Meteor 
3-3 (20305, 89-86A), but it was over 1,600 km away with 
Quicksat predicted magnitude of +6.4.  Has anyone ever 
observed it flash, flare, or glint to about 9 magnitudes 
brighter than that?

The brightness made me think Iridium, and it turns out that
Iridium 15 (24869, 97-34A) was in the ballpark, although it
went about 30 degrees east of Jupiter.  Its flare went from
30.6N by 94.4W to 27.1N by 94.2W between 1:16 and 1:17, with 
the MMA angle for my folks being about 20 deg.  I'm 
wondering if my dad might have seen a reflection of its solar 
panels.  (By the way, aside to Paul Maley -- with reference 
to the solar panels, what's the "Beta angle"?)  Or maybe it 
was from the panels of Meteor 3-3.

By the way, my dad's pretty good at spotting satellites; his
vision is excellent.  My folks pretty regularly watch for 
Mir, HST, GRO, Shuttles and other bright ones and also have 
seen at least one monster Iridium flare so far.  My sister is 
now running her own Quicksat predictions for them.

Ed Cannon
ecannon@mail.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas, USA