Iridium 13 put on an impressive show for the Los Angeles Astronomical Society for their star party at the Griffith Observatory (34.1167N, 118.3000W 357m ASL). It flared to the predicted -7 mag at 03:37:50 UTC 12 March in the center of the Little Dipper (11az, 28el). Iridium 11 (04:20 UTC 12 March) and Iridium 14 (03:19 UTC 12 March) provided some nice 1x flashes. Other 1x passes were visible from OCS as it passed above alpha Per (310az, 40el) at 03:56 UTC and Seasat as it passed below Rigel (240az, 30el) at 04:28. None of the 1x passes manage to trigger the cheers that the Iridium 13 flare did. Observed the Taurus launch from Arcadia (34.1397N, 118.0344W, 148m ASL). Apologies for not recording accurate times. Many thanks to Richard Baldridge for providing help and data for the track. It launched about 5 minutes into the launch window. Shortly after acquiring it I believe that I observed the 1st stage separation. The flame from the 2nd stage reached about 0.5 deg and was about a -2.5 mag. Just as it passed alpha Hya the next stage separated and the third stage ignited a few seconds later. At this time the track was about 5 deg higher in elevation than predicted. The final stage burned for a few minutes and shut off. The track of the launch never seemed to lover in elevation. Cheers Don Gardner 39.1796 N, 76.8419 W, 34m ASL (Normally) Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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