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ISS pass last night



 
 
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  #11  
Old May 20th 04, 11:54 PM
Yokel
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"Mike Murphy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:38:10 +0100, Martin Frey
wrote:

At 9.50 last night an exceptionally bright satellite went practically
over my zenith - Starry Night says it was the ISS - but I've never
seen it so bright - blazing through cloud that Vega couldn't begin to
penetrate.


I went out to spot it because, although I've seen the ISS many times,
it was a very early time in the evening that was predicted.

The print out that I was working to was some days old and the ISS was
late but I persisted and then suddenly saw it aout of the corner of my
eye and it was very, very bright never seen it so bright. It had the
right motion for the ISS so I'm sure that it wasn't an Iridium flare.

It was so bright that I expected people walking outside in the warm
evening air to proclaim, "What the ****'s that?" but despite there
being many evening strollers about nobody did. I guess people don't
look up much.

It was indeed bright. The "Heavens Above" site gave it as magnitude -0.7,
but it appeared to be significantly brighter than this. Jupiter, high in
the S at the time, seemed a fair comparison.

I have seen the ISS "flare" before, but there was no evidence of it this
time. The whole pass was gloriously brilliant, almost from when I first saw
it just W of S to when it vanished behind trees to my east, still about
20-30 degrees above the horizon.

Has the geometry of the station been changed in the last year or so?

BTW, the ISS and the Iridium satellites have very different orbits. The
Iridium "constellation" are polar orbiters so an Iridium flare normally
passes south to north or north to south or somewhere near this. The
latitude of the UK is close to the northernnmost point the ISS orbit
attains, so an ISS pass is west to east or close thereto. The Iridium
satellites are also normally only visible to the unaided eye during the
"flare" and for a few seconds either side while the ISS brightness normally
varies only slightly during the pass, except for entry / exit into the
earth's shadow.
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  #12  
Old May 26th 04, 02:16 AM
Enigma
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Hello Mark,

The following may be of interest for the ISS sighting on
12/10/02;

"Mark H" wrote in message
...
There was a pass last year of ISS which reached somewhere in

the -4 region,
quite a few people saw it.

There was some discussion of it on the SEESAT group because I

wanted to know
if anyone had seen it flare.

Mark


Extracted from:

FILER'S FILES #42 - 2002, MUFON Skywatch Investigations
George A. Filer, Director Mutual UFO Network Eastern
October 16, 2002, . Webmaster: Chuck
Warren -- My new website is at:

http://www.filersfiles-ufo.com

TICKHILL, YORKSHIRE -- Donna wrote, "On October12, 2002, my
fiancé and I were walking home, when he noticed a strange light
in the sky at 7:45 PM. He pointed it out to me and we both
observed an object bigger and brighter than a star for about two
minutes. The movement it made was strange, it swayed from side
to side and seemed to bob up and down. The light faded and got
brighter whilst we watched it for about two minutes until it
eventually just disappeared, but it did not move away, it just
faded away. We both observed strange white beams of light coming
off it that resembled a sparkler. Thanks to Kenny Young


Date Posted: 02 Nov 2002 05:01:22
---------------------------------
From Filer's Files:

FILER'S FILES #44 - 2002, MUFON Skywatch Investigations
George A. Filer, Director Mutual UFO Network Eastern
October 30, 2002,
.
Webmaster: Chuck Warren
Website:
http://www.filersfiles-ufo.com

Peter Davenport reports If the reported time is correct, the
object was not the Space Station/Space Shuttle, which were
rendezvoused on this date. They passed over at approximately
19:30 hours. (7:30 PM).
--- end ---

I should point out that the timings on such reports are
notoriously inaccurate, and IMHO the witness _did_ see the ISS.

Joe


 




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