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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. -- - Yokel - oo oo OOO OOO OO 0 OO ) ( I ) ( ) ( /\ ) ( Yokel @ Ashurst New Forest SU 336 107 17m a.s.l. "Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account. Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply. |
#12
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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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