[pct-l] FW: Iridium Flares

[Andrew Yip <AndrewY@micrografx.com>]

In case anyone thinks they've been seeing UFOs...

>	And just one more thing to look for in the sky if you are out on an
>	outing although these are pretty bright and probably don't need too
>	dark of a sky.  These occur fairly frequently.  Iridium flares
>	are reflections of sunlight from the solar panels of one of the 
>	satellites of the 47 satellite Iridium constellation.  Apparently
>these
>	can be 30 times brighter than Venus although only lasting a few
>seconds.
>	Enclosed is a web site for general info and how to predict them.  
>	Ok, that's all.  Happy sky watching.
>
>
>> Here are the websites where I got my Iridium flare information.  It's
>> all pretty easy to use.
>> 
>> This is general info about Iridium flares plus a lot of links.
>> http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/vsohp/iridium.html
>> 
>> This is where I get my flare predictions.  You will need to enter a
>> latitude and longitude.
>> http://www.gsoc.dlr.de/satvis/
>> 
>> This is a good place to get your latitude and longitude.
>> http://www.census.gov:80/cgi-bin/gazetteer/
>> 
>> Hope you can spot one sometime.  They are pretty shocking.  And fairly
>> frequent.  About one every day or two from any given location.  The one
>> I saw was a magnitude -8, which is as bright as they get.  
>> 
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