The end of Iridium flares?
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The end of Iridium flares?
1–10 of 68 posts
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#2Thats a shame. Seeing Iridium flares was one of the highlights of my amateur astronomy experience. The best one I remember was seeing one just randomly when I was leaving a friend's house after a saturday night party. Just decided to look up at the sky and there it was.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#3Crazy.. 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.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#4The launch of more Iridium Next sats is actually in progress over at Spacex.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#5I've been telling people for a while that this year might be their last chance to see an Iridium flare. Just today I had a predicted daytime flare but it did not show up. Seems like maybe the chance has already gone.
You can still see other satellites and the ISS, but the Iridium flares were special. I'm glad I showed my wife a good one last year.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#6I used to keep close tabs on the brightest upcoming Iridium flares–it has long been a great party trick of mine to point up at a section of the night sky and tell a group of people sitting around a campfire to watch carefully just as a bright flare lights up. It'll usually spark a bit of a sense of wonder and some great conversations. Too bad they're going away!
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#7The launch of more Iridium Next sats is actually in progress over at Spacex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0GgKfwCSk
Which will not flare.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#8I didn't know these were a thing until reading this, and now wonder if I'll ever get to see one.
Ohai, wistfulness.
Thank you, HN, for expanding my world yet again.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#9Crazy.. 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.
Re: The end of Iridium flares?
#10I used to have a cron job that ran a little perl script that screen scraped heavens-above once a day and then set up 'at' jobs to send me an SMS when a visible pass of the ISS or an Iridium flare was going to show up over me in the next 5 minutes. Was a great party trick at times and I got to see some great flares and also saw the ISS and a space shuttle a few miles from each other.