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Registered Member #72
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
Is it general science, or chatting? I think chatting.
Iridium is a constellation of 66 LEO comms satellites. Each has three mirror-like solar panels the size of a door, so with 66x3 mirrors zipping around the earth, almost any spot on earth will get several flashes per 24 hours brighter than magnitude -2, and a handful a week at -7 or better, peak is -9.5. The site has a predictor for forecasting these for any spot on the earth.
There was a magnitude -4 predicted for a reasonable time last night, 9:41pm, so I got the kids outside on a pre-text. With 15 seconds to go I suddenly stopped and did my Obi-Wan Kanobe impression with an "aaaargh, I felt a disturbance in the force, as if 10,000 aliens suddenly became aware of their impending collision with our atmosphere, it felt like it ... was ... from ... over ... there" and pointed at the coordinates from the site. There it was to the second, 10 seconds duration and moving quickly. Even if I hadn't immediately ROFL'd, they wouldn't have bought the force thing, but it was an excellent rehersal. I may try it later in the year at a barbie with some rather more guillable adults!
Geometrically Frustrated Registered Member #6
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 04:18AM
Location: Bowdoin, Maine
Posts: 373
Haha, that's great. I've watched several since having learned they exist (Chris Russell pointed out to me that there would be a very bright one over my house that night). They're neat, and can be surprisingly bright.
Registered Member #72
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
The magnitude needed for daylight visibility is around -4. On this basis, Mars shouldn't be visible in the day, but dawn and dusk will improve things somewhat. The site mentioned uses -6 as its "daylight visible" criterion if you ask for daylight only sightings, and tends to throw up one candidate a week.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
hehe, I remeber climbing up on the roof almost 5 years ago to see the flares (my dad grew the solar cells on them).
I lost the link, but there was someone at burningman who had set up a system that like a minute before each flare would shine a green laser up at the flare and starts a big ole countdown timer
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Fun with Iridium
