RE: Iridium Flares ground projection
Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:21:20 +0100
>I've wondered about the spotlight projection myself, and don't think it
>would be anything spectacular. For Randy's 1200km distant Iridium,
>assuming all the light falls in the 10x20km rectangle and the albedo of
>the antenna is 100% (at 188x86cm) the light would be "diluted" (dimmed) by
>about a factor of 8 BILLION! (or about 20 magnitudes from the sun itself).
I'd think the full moon shines at mag -12.4, a bright flare about -8.4,
or only 40 times fainter. Full moonshine is quite bright and casts shadows,
but it still makes forty times fainter really difficult ?
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