The end of Iridium flares?

Post by dane-pgp » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:57 AM UTC

donarb wrote: post #22

An interesting fact is why the name Iridium? When they were in the planning stages for this set of satellites, they estimated that they would need 77 of them to completely cover the Earth (including the poles), evoking an image of 77 electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. The atomic number for the element Iridium is 77. The number of satellites needed was paired down to 66, so the satellites should actually be na…

Post by Bromskloss » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

timdierks wrote: post #9

winkywooster wrote: post #3

Crazy.. I've never seen a satellite flare until a couple of weeks ago. Camping in New Mexico and I decided to sleep out in the open. As I kept waking up in the night worrying about critters, I was watching the stars make their way through the sky. I was surprised at the number of satellites I saw, including one glint which I've never seen before. I had to look up if that was actually a thing.

You should seek out a flare if you can, it's much much brighter than seeing a satellite or the ISS, as impressive as those are.

Post by jhpankow » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

ghotli wrote: post #44

fapjacks wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to sound weird, but... One of the best nights of my life, I was on the beach at Bellows in the middle of the night with this Israeli chick the week after I got back from my last tour in Iraq. We were laying there in the sand, doing what people do on the beach at night and talking about the stars and the universe and smoking dope. I was just talking about the launch of one of the shuttles about half an h…

Really cool. My dad used to make me go around to teachers before a big meteor shower with documentation as to why this year's shower was "gonna be the big one" and me being out of school the next day should be an excused abcense. That translates to at least ten summers of one night a year under the stars during a shower. Your story reminded me of a time when what must have been a school bus of space dust burned acros…

Post by beachy » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #39

dcfrdrklj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The University of Sydney Physics Society (physoc) used to have some great rooftop parties (in the late 80s). Invariably someone would raid the dry ice freezer and put it in the empty bottles and screw the lids on to make "depth charges". These would get dropped over the edge and go off with a resounding boom sometime later, scaring the wits out of anyone at ground level. University Security would invariably arrive to…

That's one of those things that wouldn't fly at universities these days. At least in NZ, all the traditional student events and activities have been slowly neutered over the past decade or so, to ensure that nobody gets hurt, and that everything is tame and hurts nobody's sensibilities.

Post by toomanybeersies » Wed, May 23, 2018, 4:08 AM UTC

beachy wrote: post #47

toomanybeersies wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of those things that wouldn't fly at universities these days. At least in NZ, all the traditional student events and activities have been slowly neutered over the past decade or so, to ensure that nobody gets hurt, and that everything is tame and hurts nobody's sensibilities.

I was about to prove you wrong by demonstrating that couch fires are still a fun student tradition in NZ, but googling shows the very opposite. https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/heat-out-couch-burning . Only 11 fires in the first three months of last year, a massive 65% drop on the previous low of 31 for the period.