Astroblog: There's a Flare in There

Sunday, October 15, 2006

There's a Flare in There

There is, I promise. There were two good Iridium flares this "evening", a -5 and a -2, both occuring withing 4 minutes of each other, and nearly side by side in location. Unfortunately, they occured 10 and 14 minutes after Sunset respectively, well before the end of civil twilight.

But I set the camera up anyway, and in between SkyMap and Heavens Above, I was able to see the flares burst from the blue. It was pretty amazing, the flare was of course much more fleeting than those I have seen when properly dark, but they were very clear.

Sadly, the brightness of the sky was a bit overwhelming for my poor camera, which recorded only clear skies.

My next task is to see a daytime flare.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:24 pm