3 Iridium flares in 2 minutes
Mark A. Hanning-Lee (mhanning-lee@syagen.com)
Wed, 01 Sep 1999 13:53:08 -0700
Tonight in S CA there are 3 Iridium flares predicted in 2 minutes, at
least in my location. Naturally 2 are not in normal status; they're
marked with ?.
I guess we might see something ... good chance for a photo? The sky may
be a bit bright though with the sun at only -7 degrees ... if the sky
were darker CCD owners could go over the top by adding a few pictures.
Iridium 20A seems to have had an orbit change recently; predictions I
made 9 days ago with then-current TLEs are now incorrect by 1 minute
using the latest TLEs.
Here is the raw Skymap output:
Latitude: 33.72900 Longitude: -117.82200 Altitude: 110.0 ft
Time Zone: UTC -7.0 h
Local Local Iridium Sun Flare Max Flare Ird
Day Date Time Azm El Rnge N I Azm Elv Mag MMA Bearing # S
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wed 99- 9- 1 19:53:12 139 64 532 D L 285 -7 -8 R 1.7 mi E 22
Wed 99- 9- 1 19:54:26 139 64 534 D L 286 -7 -7 R 2.9 mi W 69 ?
Wed 99- 9- 1 19:55:11 143 66 465 D L 286 -8 -1 R 14.2 mi W 20A ?
Best, Mark