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Re: (meteorobs) July 26-27 Observation



Patrick McNally wrote:
> On July 26-27 at approximately 10:15 my wife and I observed something we
>had never seen before.  We live in upstate New York and observed this in
>the Town of Berkshire in northern Tioga County.  It was a bright, clear
>night with a very small number of clouds and the Milky Way was clearly
>visible.

>My wife observed what she initially thought was a jet coming out of the
>South (closer to Scorpio than Capricorn).  She saw it first at an altitude
>of about 30 degrees.  She noticed that it had no flashing lights and that
>it appeared to be moving about twice as fast or faster than jets normally
>travel.  It moved nearly overhead (approximately 15 degrees west of the
>azimuth).  She took her eyes off it for a minute or so, because we were in
>the middle of meteor watching, when both of us were startled by a bright
>(approximately as bright as a full moon and bright enough to light up a
>large portion of the sky), single white flash (with what appeared to be a
>brief red afterglow), from this object very near Polaris.  After the flash,
>it continued on to the north slowly dimming before it faded completely
>about at altitude 15 at almost due North.

This sounds *very* like an Iridium flare. Much like any other
low-earth-orbiting satellite, except for a very bright flash (up to about
magnitude -7) as one of the Main Mission Antennas catches the light.

You can visit http://www.gsoc.dlrdot de/satvis for on-line predictions of
Iridium flares and other satellites, including Mir, for your location. As
well as predictions you can check Iridium flares for the previous 48 hours.
(I was just too late to check the McNallys' observations.)

http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/vsohp/iridium.html gives more background
on Iridium, including links for downloadable satellite prediction programs
and sites to identify your exact latitude and longitude, which you'll need
in order to use the GSOC site if your location isn't in their database of
known cities.