Early this evening I observed an unbelievably bright surge in magnitude of the ISS - 30 seconds before entering the Earth's shadow. I've been observing the ISS for some time now and this was by far the best magnitude I have seen - far far brighter than Venus, it almost looked like an aircraft coming into land. The conditions were perfect, with crystal clear skies and about 15 minutes after sunset. I presume that the increase in magnitude was due to the solar panels directly reflecting the sun? Admittedly this was the first time I had observed an ISS pass so soon after sunset so I guess that the timing of the pass and angle of the sun combined to give this dramatic flare-up? James, Norwich, Norfolk, UK ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 14 2001 - 17:14:51 EST