Wow

Just went out to the back garden to see if the conditions were ok for setting up, when I saw a blinding light in the sky West South West in direction and about 30 - 35 degrees from the horizon. It quickly faded away.


Having checked the iridium flare predictions on Heavens above it turned out to be Iridium 66 at 00.08:36 at a magnitude of -7. (These are the HA details 00:08:36 -7 31° 244° (WSW) 8.2 km (E) -7 Iridium 66 )

What a sight....... if only I had the camera set up........ :roll:

Did anyone else see it?

Wow indeed. I've never managed to see a -7 one!

And even when you do have a camera set up,
you still have to be lucky......

Not sure if this is the one you are talking about but I did see
one last night at around 11.15 from the Burren.
I was walking back to the rest of the lads having left my camera
work away on a test shot for a star trail when I saw the brightest flare
I have ever seen.
I've seen mag-8 yea thats bright, this was blindlingly bright!
It actually dazzeled me.
At first I thought it was a planes headlights but I soon realized it was an
iridium.

I went back to check the shot.
Here is the impressive thing.
I was doing tests and had the ISO at only 100
and the Ap. at 10.
It still showed up!!

If ONLY I had the settings normal!
arrragh,

Anyway, out of plain curiosity I processed it in
photoshop to tease out the flare as best I could.

I'd love to know what one it was coz I was totally in its track.
(BTW the trails are Saturn, Regulus then Mars and the Twins.

www.frankryanjr.com/iridium_flare_from_b...al_large_26_4_08.jpg


Close up...

www.frankryanjr.com/iridium_flare_from_burren_26_4_08.jpg

Great shot Frank

I was buried in an eyepiece when this one happened, typical!

Nice iridium flare site Steve, and cool shots Frank, but think you can resize them data-wise? They were taking too long to load on dial-up last night.

Seanie.