Of course I did not intend to cast any dispersions/derogatory comments on the program Rob wrote. I was well aware of the limitations of the program which frankly cannot be modeled better without validating observations. With only two such obs, and my limitations at estimating magnitudes, little can be expected at this point. Plus, it is not a program that as many folks can use compared to normal Iridium flares. I assume the magnitudes are close for a full moon, but was not aware how much it would drop as we approach last quarter. I would feel confident in seeing tonights flare even though one day closer to last quarter BUT upon running Skymap, the flare occurs while the Iridium is sunlit. All things considered, I find it amazing that Rob can predict such an event that can be seen in the less than 1 degree FOV of a telescope. As an aside, I was concentrating on the center of the eyepiece. I saw the Iridium perhaps halfway from the edge to the center and it was visible until it left the field of view. Ron Lee >Yes -- the MOONFLAR program that I gave Ron does not >have a lunar phase function in it. This is sufficient >to account for much of the 2.5 magnitude discrepancy. >I hope to get a chance to take care of this before >Ron's next opportunity tonite. --Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 24 2000 - 16:40:45 PST