Aeromoe's Version of Joe Orman's Naked-Eye 100 List

Number 93: Iridium Satellite Flares - Iridium 98

I was expecting three iridium flares in a 10-minute span: 81, 51, and 82. Heavens Above said the 2nd flare of the three was going to be Iridium 51, another spare but located in Plane 4. While waiting for the flares I logged onto Real Time Satellite Tracking to see where 51 was...it was on the other side of the earth!

So what flare did I witness in place of 51? I remembered the Cal Sky website is a very good site for Iridium Flare predictions so I checked it out. I ran a query for flares for my location and sure enough Iridium 98 was sandwiched right between 81 and 82. Bingo. I'd photographed a flare I could not find any future flare predictions for on Heavens Above, and checked another Iridium satellite off my "list."

Below is a photo of Iridium 98 flaring at magnitude -3 (predicted) on June 14th, 2011 in the constellation Leo. Below the photo are some screen shots of the webpages I used to verify the identity of this flare.



Screenshot of Real Time Satellite Tracking website showing positions of Iridium 81, 98, 82, and 51 (off screen at the bottom).



Screenshot of the Cal Sky website showing flare predictions for my location and the date/time in question.

Note: I did photograph 72, 81, 98, and 82 this evening. 41 was not a prediction on Heavens Above and it was too late to look for it once I found this web page.

It would have been interesting to see if the mag 0.9 flare would have been visible...it was only 10 degrees up but I've seen them at that altitude before.

Lesson: Pay closer attention to Cal Sky for flare predictions!!!! :)



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