Iridium 11 flashes observed

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Hello -

I observed a protracted episode of flashing from Iridium 11 early this
morning.  At 1x I saw 17 flashes ranging from apparent negative magnitudes to
approximately magnitude 2, more or less evenly spaced over a time interval of
almost four minutes.  Most of the flashes were negative magnitude.  Time
intervals between flashes clustered around 5.5 seconds and 15 seconds with an
occasional shorter interval.  Unfortunately, my stop watch only has enough
memory for 9 lap times.  Listed below are the clocked times of the first eight
flashes and the last flash.

The column labeled DT is the clocked time interval (lap time) 
from the previous observed flash, in seconds.

 #           UTC            DT    Comment   
-- ---------------------- ----- -----------------------------
01 07/19/1998 11:00:09.50       Bright flash (approx mag. -2)
02 07/19/1998 11:00:25.20 15.70 Dim flash (approx mag. 2)
03 07/19/1998 11:00:30.80  5.60 Bright flash
04 07/19/1998 11:00:44.70 13.90 Bright flash
05 07/19/1998 11:00:49.98  5.28
06 07/19/1998 11:00:55.60  5.62
07 07/19/1998 11:01:01.14  5.54
08 07/19/1998 11:01:06.82  5.68
09 07/19/1998 11:01:09.90  3.08
      ...                       7 additional flashes observed    
17 07/19/1998 11:03:44.90  1.21 Dim flash (last flash observed)

This was an unprecedented sighting for me.  In the past, flashing episodes
I've
seen of Iridium 20 and 11 lasted only a few seconds.

- Frank

-- Frank Reed
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA  111.898W  33.484 N  1227 feet 

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