Iridium Flares

How do these appear in the night sky? Do they streak, move along slowly or just brighten and dim in a stationary position?

I was out tonight at about 9:30 looking at Mars, when I decided to take off the diagonal to see if it would improve the image much. Anyways I stood up and turned to the right as I was taking the eyepiece out of the diagonal when I saw a very bright star fairly high up in the west north-west. I was looking at it thinking jesus how did I not see that already and check it out, when it started to slowly dim to nothing in a matter of seconds. It was much much brighter than Mars when I looked up first.

What did I see folks? Apart from Saturn which I checked out a little bit later! Man that was class.

It certainly sounds like an Iridum flare....and a nice one to at that. Good observation!

To be absolutely certain check out this
www.heavens-above.com/iridium.asp?Sessio...Date=38712.530150463
it shows the times of iridium flares in the past 48 hours and this the next week
www.heavens-above.com/iridium.asp?Sessio...neeehimnoc&Dur=7
Hope this helps
matthew C

Cheers, I forgot to check Heavens Above. Although I did it just now and there was only one at 5:50, a few hours too early!

It won't have predictions for all Iridium Flares, and it could also have been either another satellite, or a bit of space debris turning as it travelled.

How do these appear in the night sky? Do they streak, move along slowly or just brighten and dim in a stationary position?

I was out tonight at about 9:30 looking at Mars, when I decided to take off the diagonal to see if it would improve the image much. Anyways I stood up and turned to the right as I was taking the eyepiece out of the diagonal when I saw a very bright star fairly high up in the west north-west. I was looking at it thinking jesus how did I not see that already and check it out, when it started to slowly dim to nothing in a matter of seconds. It was much much brighter than Mars when I looked up first.

What did I see folks? Apart from Saturn which I checked out a little bit later! Man that was class.

Definitely sounds like an Iridium flare to me too.

Bart.