First, I must say: Iridium Flares are
super, super COOL! Even my wife enjoys them 8^). They typically last 15-45
seconds so you need to be looking in the right area of the sky at the right
time. Here's some tips:
Syncronize your watch with the U.S. Naval Observatory http://www.time.gov/ or go to http://www.atomtime.com/ for a nice
shareware utility that will set your PC's clock to the atomic clock.
The last thing you need to do is to determine where in the sky the bird is
gonna do it's thing. (Don't worry, you'll be using 'satellite slang' in no
time 8^) Just remember in Altitude, 90 degrees is straight up, 45 degrees is
halfway up and so on. And Azimuth is simply 'compass heading' where 0 is
North, 90 is East, 180 is South and 270 is West.
Second, a word on magnitude: The Flare predictions made at heavens-above.com range in magnitude
from 0 to -9. The smaller the number the brighter the flare, huh?. And just to
make sure you're good and confused, the magnitude scale is logarithmic so a -5
flare is 100 times brighter than a 0 flare, huh? Sorta like the Richter Scale
but backwards. Just for comparison the bright star Vega is a 0 magnitude star,
Jupiter is shining at -2.2, Venus is shining at -4.5, and the full moon shines
at a whopping -13. So you can see that flares can be quite bright and
fascinating. Just for the curious, our eyes are limited to about +6, 10x50
binoculars around +10 and the Sun shines at about -27! Not in Northwestern PA in
the winter though. We usually only see "lake-effect" snow, but I
digress.
This is a -8 Flare from Iridium
12 Notice the bright star Vega and constellation Lyra off to the right One
minute exposure at 50mm on ISO-800 taken 6/27/00 at 22:16 EDT from Erie,
PA
Here's what a -3 Flare looks like
through a thin cloud layer This was Iridium 19 on 5/25/00 at 22:55 EDT from
Erie, PA The flare is over delta Cygni and Vega is in upper right
corner This was a 3 minute exposure at 70mm on ISO-800
film.
Here's a -6 Flare from Iridium
80 A 30 second exposure at 70mm on ISO-800 taken 6/30/00 at 23:32 EDT from
Erie, PA Cassiopeia is to the upper left of the flare
And here's a 30 second exposure of the
MIR Space Station at magnitude -1.2 This was taken 7/1/00 at 21:59 EDT from
ECMOG's prime viewing
location in Mill Village, PA
Space Shuttle Atlantis
(STS-106) with the International Space Station shortly after undocking. An
airplane competes for attention across the bottom. Taken 9/19/00 at 6:21
EDT
Space Shuttle Atlantis
(STS-106) with the International Space Station shortly after undocking. The
Shuttle is on top and leads ISS by 135 miles. Taken 9/19/00 at 6:21
EDT
Space Shuttle Discovery
(STS-92) docked with the International Space Station. Taken 10/13/00 at 19:44
EDT
Sunset at Presque Isle with
Venus. Taken 10/20/00 at 19:18 EDT
Cool double flare just seconds
apart Top Flare from Iridium 40 was a -3 magnitude while 82 only hit
-1 Taken 4/8/01 at 21:42 EDT
Iridium 82's revenge Just 4 nights
later Iridium 82 hits a honkin -8 magnitude! Taken 4/12/01 at 21:26
EDT
Here's a NASA picture of the MIR Space Station
Here's a shot of the International Space Station from Space Shuttle
Atlantis after undocking during STS-98. Atlantis installed the Destiny Module
towards the bottom of the picture.
