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This site is intended for anyone interested in astronomy, and particularly anyone who would like to be a member of the Bootham School Astronomy Society. This membership is available to all members of the Bootham community, and students from other York schools who have attended the ISSP course on astronomy at Bootham. If you choose to subscribe by email, you will receive an email of any new post within about twenty four hours. There will also be twitter updates before an observatory session, and you are recommended to follow me on twitter using the button on the right of this screen.

Monday, 10 October 2011

Iridium Flare 14th October

While you're at it, why not look out for this Iridum flare? These bright flashes of light happen when a rotating Iridium series satellite flashes a beam of reflected sunlight back to the Earth from its mirrored surface.


14 Oct18:23:41-446°193° (SSW)11.0 km (W)-8Iridium 4


-4 tells you how bright it will be. The biggest minus numbers are the best. -4 is very bright.
46 tells you how high up to look. The horizon is at 0 and overhead is at 90, so this is almost exactly half way.
193 tells you what direction to look in - North is 0, south is 180.

in other words, look half way up the sky, a little west of south at 18:23 and 41 seconds. the flare will last for a few seconds...

source: heavens-above website, link on the right
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