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To: CapnJack

I see this often and my theory is that it is sunlight reflecting off of different satellites.

Lots and lots of junk up there.

Also all meteors don’t streak across the sky. Some can come straight in and make a bright blip in the sky.


7 posted on 03/23/2013 8:41:20 PM PDT by listenhillary (Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)
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To: CapnJack; listenhillary

I remember having a computer program a decade ago that would tell when you could see these from your current location:

http://www.satobs.org/iridium.html

“With only a normal brightness of +6 magnitude (binoculars are useful to spot it), occasionally some of the Iridium satellites provide reflective flares/glints of magnitude (-)8. For comparison, Venus can be as bright as magnitude (-)4.9, thus reflections can be up to 30 times brighter than Venus. The flares/glints can last anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds before the satellite once again becomes almost invisible to the naked eye. Some flares have been observed during the daylight hours which is very unusual for reflective glares from satellites. Knowing where to look to observe these flares during the daylight hours is essential.”


24 posted on 03/23/2013 9:04:00 PM PDT by Chesterbelloc
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