This morning (12 Oct 2008) at around 5:50am, while doing a quick observation using my binoculars, I saw 2 satellites (second one behave like an Iridium Flares) moving across the sky.
Just now, I checked the Heavens Above to check which satellite and Iridium flare I was looking at. The first one I saw was Sea Lan Dem Rocket as it's match the time, brightness and path predicted by Heavens Above exactly. The next one indicated by the Heavens Above should be the HST, but the brightness was far brighter than what Heavens-Above predicted and it's behave like an Iridium flare. So I checked was there any Iridium flare at that period of time, but there was no such records in Heavens Above.
Anyway, the HST was way brighter than what Heavens Above predicted(magnitude 2). I estimate the brightness was from magnitude -2 to -3 since it was a lot brighter than near by Sirius when I notice it. It's maintained the maximum brightness (golden in colour like Jupiter) for may be 10s to 20s and started to dim down rapidly as it moved towards south direction.
Anyway, I finally observed something not predicted accurately by Heavens Above.... ha ha ha
Hmm... may be the "extra" brightness was caused by sunrise as the sky had already started to brighten up when the HST was at it's maximum brightness and Heavens Above forget to consider the effect of the Sun??Just wonder anyone saw this also??
Have a nice day.
![[smilie=admire2.gif]](./images/smilies/admire2.gif "admire2")
