James, Check out the movie showing a flare off the ISS at http://www.btinternet.com/~mikejtyrrell/iss.htm It will put much meaning to what you saw. Tom Iowa USA ----- Original Message ----- From: "James" <james.mindham@btinternet.com> To: <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 4:06 PM Subject: ISS magnitude surge > 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? ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 - 18:19:22 EST