Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
Basically a tumbling satellite. As it rotates (spins) it can reflect sunlight down to the Earth usually off of the solar panels.
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I believe that the Iridium sats are not tumbling, its just the reflective solar panels that happen to shine onto a certain location, I could be wrong but if it was spinning it would have a variable brightness that is unpredictable. I caught a tumbling sat once in an exposure of m42 as seen
http://i.imgur.com/S0wJRYS.jpg here, it makes 3 different reflections.
Dan