FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Question about Iridium flare

[Andrew Cooper <acooper@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sounds exactly like an Iridium flare to me.  You can go to a website 
called Heavens Above, feed in your lat. and long. and get it to tell you 
what events happened yesterday.  You need to be fairly accurate on the 
latitude and longitude as a few mile can make quite a difference on the 
flare brightness.  There is a selection for flares in the previous 48 
hours on the main page, and once you get into the tables of flares you 
can step back further with the "prev" selection at the top.

Andrew

http://www.heavens-above.com/

Andrew Cooper
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.siowl.com




Peter Collingwood wrote:
> This morning at 06:00 as I stepped outside my apartment I was admiring Orion 
> when I noticed what I thought must be Jupiter until I realised it was in the 
> wrong part of the sky. It was in the North only a few degrees north west of 
> Polaris and looked very Jupiterish with a yellow hue and at least Mag1. Then 
> I realised it was moving due north and by the time it passed Polaris within 
> a minute it faded abruptly to just barely visible. I watched it a couple 
> more minutes until it was lost in the glare closer to the northern horizon. 
> Was this an Iridium flare? Or possibly some other satelite? Is there a way 
> to find out?
>
> - Peter
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