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Iridium 64 companion?
Last night my wife and I unexpectedly observed an Iridium flare from
my back yard, which I estimated reached a maximum magnitude of about -6. When I later checked this out on Heavens Above, it appears to match a predicted pass for the Iridium 64 satellite. We've both seen many of these events in the past, and this one seemed pretty typical at first. However, a short time later (maybe 15 to 30 seconds?), we noticed a second satellite flare in the same location in the sky. This flare was almost a carbon copy of the first (it appeared and disappeared in the same places, and lasted about the same amount of time), except that this one was significantly dimmer (about magnitude -1). The similarities between the two events suggest that they are related in some way. Was the second event a different Iridium satellite (a replacement sharing the same orbit), a piece of debris from Iridium 64 (seems unlikely), or a totally unrelated satellite (also seems unlikely)? I've never heard of a similar double-event, and am curious if anyone can shed any light on the matter. Thanks. |
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Iridium 64 companion?
On Aug 29, 8:24 am, wrote:
Last night my wife and I unexpectedly observed an Iridium flare from my back yard, which I estimated reached a maximum magnitude of about -6. When I later checked this out on Heavens Above, it appears to match a predicted pass for the Iridium 64 satellite. We've both seen many of these events in the past, and this one seemed pretty typical at first. However, a short time later (maybe 15 to 30 seconds?), we noticed a second satellite flare in the same location in the sky. This flare was almost a carbon copy of the first (it appeared and disappeared in the same places, and lasted about the same amount of time), except that this one was significantly dimmer (about magnitude -1). The similarities between the two events suggest that they are related in some way. Was the second event a different Iridium satellite (a replacement sharing the same orbit), a piece of debris from Iridium 64 (seems unlikely), or a totally unrelated satellite (also seems unlikely)? I've never heard of a similar double-event, and am curious if anyone can shed any light on the matter. Thanks. Not so common, but you can have double flares. I see that on the evening of Aug. 28, Iridium 74 followed Ir64 by 40-70 sec, Jay (a group founder) |
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