Iridium 911 flashing like mad

From: Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 30 2001 - 02:43:50 PST

  • Next message: chiayk@singnet.com.sg: "My first southern hemisphere iridium 3/29/01"

    Last night it was mostly clear for a while.  After a brief look 
    at Lacrosse 2, low in the east I saw a northbound, rapidly and 
    brightly flashing object that I thought was probably an airplane.  
    But I had predictions for some flashing Iridiums and so went 
    ahead and started clicking on the flashes.  When I checked, they
    were more like 1.2 to 1.25 second, which is not very likely for 
    an airplane.  So I'm pretty sure it was Iridium 911 (97-030G, 
    24842).  It was already flashing when I first noticed it, and it 
    was still carrying on when it went behind an athletic stadium.  
    Magnitude was in the Sirius-to-Jupiter range, roughly -2, plus or 
    minus.  Due to some building interference causing a gap, and the 
    whole sequence not coming out even (phase shift?), here are two 
    separate timings from the same pass:
    
    97- 30 G 01-03-30 01:29:31   EC   17.9 0.5  15  1.20  mag -2->inv
    97- 30 G 01-03-30 01:30:19.5 EC   25.3 0.5  21  1.20  mag -2->inv
    
    Location:  Univ. of Texas at Austin campus, 30.286N, 97.739W, 150m.
    
    Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
    
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