Iridium Based on another prediction from Randy John's program, my sister and I observed an Iridium flare to about -1.5 from San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday evening (about 1:10:50 [?] to 1:11:20 Sunday 5 Oct UTC). The best mirror-angle prediction I had was 1.67 at 1:10:59. Now I owe two Iridium reports. I left her one for Monday evening with a predicted mirror angle of 1.13. 92076B? Friday (morning here in Austin as I was waiting for the Iridium prediction that I reported Friday, I looked for Cosmos 2219 Rk (92-76B, 22220) to appear in the south. I didn't see it. Or did I? In the area of where I was looking for it (one-power), a very bright flash caught my eye. I kept looking for where it should be but saw no satellite. Then there was another bright flash in about the right position. Then I got more ready and when there was another flash looked at my digital clock. I got 4 times, the last 3 more certain than the first: 11:23:07, 11:23:26, 11:23:41, and 11:24:00, each one pretty much on track for Cosmos 2219 Rk. These were very bright, at least mag 0. But I never saw an object in between the flashes. And the flashes seemed to differ from one another -- single, double.... It was really kind of strange. There was a little thin fog; maybe that's why I didn't see anything between them and why they appeared yellow. Anyway, in the PPAS database Leo Barhorst has reported in April of this year 3 obs with periods in the 30+ second range (and in the 40+ second range in March!). It would appear that *if* it was 92-76B, I got 34 seconds, but with two unequal parts, one 15 seconds and the other 19 seconds. So I'm just not sure and wanted to report it as such. This and the Friday Iridium were both from outside my apartment. STS-86/Mir I was truly thrilled by the Atlantis-Mir passes over here Friday evening!! I had never seen them both together, and we had very good weather. I was able to help several other folks see them as well; all of us were at a birthday party. It was great! STS-86 was *very* bright as it rose in the WSW; Mir followed faintly about a minute later. But as they progressed across the sky to NW and on to NNE, STS-86 gradually dimmed, but Mir brightened significantly -- due to us getting a better phase on its solar panels. I was thrilled! Terms: Just in general connotation, to me "glint" means very brief and not very bright; "flare" means very bright and of extended duration. I wasn't around here when those terms apparently were discussed 2 years ago or whenever that was. Anyway, to me what I've seen Iridiums (and Mir, HST, GRO, and NOAA 11) do are flares. HST's have been the briefest but about the brightest after the -6 Iridium I saw -- except for one Mir pass which may have equalled HST in brightness and lasted many seconds. In what sense is NORAD obsolete? Here's its URL: http://www.spacecom.af.mil/norad/index.htm Those considered, I can agree with several of Walter Nissen's comments on terminology and related issues. I'm very happy to see the layouts being preserved on the hypermail archive! Now I see one drawback to the <PRE></PRE> method, which I was so hoping would solve problems. Some messages don't have carriage returns or something and are just running on and on to the right.... (Gosh, I hope this one doesn't do that!) Ed Cannon ecannon@mail.utexas.edu Austin, Texas, USA -- 30.3086N, 97.7279W, 165m