While awaiting a predicted -8 mag Iridium flare, I was treated to an
unid at nearly the same spot which I was able later to id as Terra.
Iridium 74 flared on schedule, but was dimmed thanks to a haze which
left only Jupiter and the brighest stars visible. I have seen a few
-8 mag flares, and this one was bright but not spectacular.
About 1/2 hour later and in the opposite direction, Irid 17 flared
but surprised me by doing so above left of and close to Jupiter,
exceeding the planet in brightness. About 9 min later, Irid 15
underlined Jupiter with its luminous passage. Impressive show.
Other than the Jupiter encounter, I am reporting this because of the
non-flare of Irid 38, which was predicted for a bright flare about
2.5 min after Irid 17 at nearly the same spot. Three flares close
to Jupiter would have been nice, but it was not to be.
The close spacing timewise between Irid 17 & 38 bothered me so I did
a little research. I notice that Irid 38 has been listed as possibly
failed, but is flaged as operational in the TLEs. This report is
not a complaint, but hopefully may contribute some observational
data towards determining the flare status of Iridium 38.
IRIDFLAR predictions for this session is included below:
Latitude: 42.07111 Longitude: -72.67888 Altitude: 220.0 ft
Time Zone: UTC -4.0 h
Local Local Iridium Sun Flare Maximum Flare Ird
Day Date Time Azm El Rnge N I Azm Elv MMA Mag Latit. Longit. #
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:15:42 049 36 753 D L 323 -15 R 2 42.740 -72.574 74
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:15:53 054 38 734 D L 323 -15 R -8 2.9 mi E 74
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:16:06 059 39 717 D L 323 -15 R 2 41.415 -72.671 74
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:41:10 252 25 941 A L 329 -17 F 2 41.500 -72.348 17
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:41:23 255 26 919 A L 329 -18 F -4 15.2 mi E 17
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:41:36 259 27 901 A L 329 -18 F 2 42.706 -72.405 17
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:43:52 252 24 980 A L 329 -18 F 2 41.371 -73.097 38
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:44:05 256 25 957 A L 330 -18 F -3 23.7 mi W 38
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:44:18 259 26 939 A L 330 -18 F 2 42.576 -73.160 38
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:50:22 256 21 1039 A L 331 -18 F 2 41.679 -74.664 15
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:50:23 257 22 1037 A L 331 -18 F 2 103 mi W 15
Tue 2004- 6- 8 22:50:24 257 22 1036 A L 331 -18 F 2 41.772 -74.670 15
--
end
Net-Tamer V 1.13 Beta - Test Drive
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 11 2004 - 02:25:26 EDT