STS-103 & HST; Iridium double flares
Mark Hanning-Lee (markhl@prodigy.net)
Sat, 25 Dec 1999 19:11:36 -0800
Hi, and merry Christmas to all!
A good evening's viewing: UARS under Saturn then a pass of HST, preceded
1 degree by STS-103 Discovery, which was about mag 1. 99/12/25 18:50 to
about 18:52 PST = 12/26 2:50 to 2:52 UTC.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts103/status.html is still being
updated frequently. Remaining events in
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/tvsked.txt include an RCS
fire at 12-26 20:45 UTC and a deorbit burn at 12-27 21:13 UTC.
Also, there was a nice second flare from Iridium 70 as it descended into
the NE. That's the third of 3 flares on which the sat has flared again
about 30 s after the main flare, to about the same brightness. Must be
something about the orientation; Iridflar notes that these flares are
all from the L MMA. The ones I've seen recently in the evening were from
the R MMA which didn't do this.
Best wishes for 2000! Mark
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