Extremely bright satellite pass

TheCrazedLog · #1 31-12-2012, 10:40 PM

Hey all:

From Sydney I was looking east at Orion at about 21:14. A satellite was passing south east to north east in a line passing through Orion and near Jupiter.

Initially this satellite was visible to the naked eye, so I guess it must have been mag 2 or something, it wasn't hard to see.

Then to my great surprise it brightened to something far brighter than I've ever seen. It easily outshone jupiter and if I'm asked to put a value to it, I'd have to say -6 or more. It was an exceptionially bright satellite.

The increase of brightness was fairly sudden. Boring boring boring boring oh that's getting brighte...AHH MY EYES! boring boring boring. (Very accurate there, I know

)

I've had a look around on Heavens Above and other places and I guess it must have been an iridium, I can't find any supporting documentation.

Can anyone help out?

Forgey (Paula) · #2 31-12-2012, 11:23 PM

Love the description you gave!! Definitely sounds like and iridium flare to me, they are pretty cool to see.

mithrandir (Andrew) · #3 31-12-2012, 11:33 PM

Restricting it to objects moving SE to NE or N I can find a couple of possibilities in CalSky. I saw something myself from Castle Hill in that part of the sky but it didn't get noticeably brighter while I was watching. It seemed "just another satellite". There don't appear to have been any Iridium flares at around that time.

Astro F (28939 2006-005-A) was my best fit for time and course.

Cosmos 2261 Cat:22741 1993-051A was predicted to decay around then but there was no course prediction for it. If your target brightened and then completely vanished that might be it.