| Not Seen
I knew this was a long shot when I went out. It seemed like it was overcast most of the afternoon today and NOAA was saying that there is a possibility of rain late tonight into tomorrow morning. But when I came home around sunset I couldn’t tell if there were clouds up there or not so went out anyway.
I had planned to go to Olmstead and Benedict where I have a fairly low eastern horizon but decided to walk through PSC on the way since the flairs were much higher now than they were last week. The tallest buildings on the opposite side of the oval and only ~25° above the horizon so I stayed there.
I was hoping that the Mag. -5 flare would be bright enough to shine through the clouds but I didn’t see anything.
I realized tonight that I have seen a double flare at least once before but didn’t know what I was seeing then. Heavens Above only lists the brightest flare then two occur from the same satellite at the same time. The only place I can find out when to watch for these events is at CalSky.
| Satellite | EST | Alt.
Az. | R.A.
Dec. | Mag. | Surface |
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| Iridium 15 | 1826:47 | 48.7°
37.6° | 5h26.8m
37.6° | -0.9 | solar panels |
|---|
| Iridium 15 | 1826:49 | 48.3°
37.0° | 5h30m
37.0° | -4.9 | left antenna |
|---|
| 32’50” between flares | |
There is another double flare tomorrow night but I will be breaking down a booth at the boat show and won’t be able to get out to see it even if the weather is clear.
I am wondering if there is an online calculator to figure out the distance between different places on the celestial sphere. I have a spreadsheet to calculate great circle distances from Lat/Long pairs on earth but it won’t work with R.A./Dec. pairs.
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