Spoilt with flares last night!

[OneOfOne (Trevor)]

A couple of nights ago there was supposed to be a couple of -6 Iridium flares, but when you can't even see the Moon through the cloud, a -6 doesn't stand a chance.

Last night was a different story. I saw the space station around 7pm at about -1 and watched it drift across the sky. Back outside an hour or so later for a -2 Iridium flare and finally a quick glimpse of the space station again just before 9 for a few seconds.

Tonight in the space of about 15 minutes, around 7:45, is the space station at -0.7 and two flares of 0 and -6. I hope the cloud holds off long enough.

A few weeks ago while the shuttle was still up, we managed to see it playing chase with the space station for a minute or so. Heavens Above is my second favourite web site!

[Dennis]

Thanks for the report and the heads up for tonight!

Cheers

Dennis

[OneOfOne (Trevor)]

Last night (Wednesday) I had an astronomy meeting at Burwood, so about a dozen of us were standing out in the back yard watching. We saw the space station drift across the sky, everyone was amazed. Then came a mag 0 flare and a couple minutes later, in almost the same position, was a -3 (it was a -6 if I was at home). All of this in about 15 minutes. Some of the people hadn't seen any before, I am sure heavens above will have some more traffic today!

[crystal_stars]

It's quite amazing to see the space station flying overhead. Observing last night was quite good even with a bright moon. In about an hour and a half there was the space station, two iridium flares and two or three metoers (don't know if there is a shower or not). A a reasonable newcomer I found it all very exciting.