Re: (Superbird-A and) Great Iridium flare
Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 07:09:52 +0100
Ron Lee:
>>if anyone wants to see a great sight, get predictions from
>>Rob Matson or Randy John's program. Look for an off-specular
>>angle of around 0.4 or less. Also suggest looking at the
>>magnitude plot on Randy's web page for a correlation of that
>>angle to magnitude. This pass was just to the east of Altair.
>>
>>24841 97-10-08 01:17:25 S 165 53 087 81 276 -15 107 10 -6 RGL
>>
On the morning of Oct.6 my monster flares seem to have been 1.3 and
1.0 degrees - Irdm 19+34-37 (AEDCB) were predicted to glint according
to the table below, with DC as the best ones.
According to Paul Maley there is a +/-0.5 degree range of the pitch
of the mirrors, which could cause +/- 1 in the off-specular angle.
Though I didn't time the flares, the first two were soon after my
alarm sounded at 03:40, and within about 10 seconds, and were about -6;
the following three were at longer intervals, and about magn. +1.
I photographed them, but only one flare, except the two monsters, are
visible, and I haven't positively identified them as AE and D yet.
The videotape is nice, but more difficult to analyze.
With new elsets I get
A 03:40:17 1.34 35.0
E 03:40:42 1.03 35.0
D 03:41:46 0.09 35.5
C 03:42:40 0.67 35.9
B 03:43:18 1.25 36.2
---------------------------------------------------------------
-- bjorn@tt-tech.se (office) b_gimle@algonet.se (home) --
-- 59.2237N, 18.2286E, 44 m http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle --
-- SeeSat-L / Visual Satellite Observer Home Page found at --
-- http://www.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html --
---------------------------------------------------------------