That's one never to forget

[Yamez]

Just seen a very bright iridium flare, the brightest I've seen. Judging it was around -5 to -8 in magnitude. 

 

I was aligning my scope when it caught my eye. In the north east just by Cassiopeia at around 20:28. Anyone else see it?

[Corkeyno2]

Roughly where are you located because I saw a satellite that suddenly went really REALLY bright.

[Yamez]

Live in cambridgeshire

[ronin]

If you are on the centre path of the flare they are bright, but nothing for Cambridge at that time, not even a dim one so are you some distance from Cambridge itself ?

Alternative is that it was not a flare from an iridium satellite, but another.

[Yamez]

Love around 30 minutes from Cambridge so it may have been direct in this direction

[ronin]

30 minutes is no help, that is close to half way to Norwich, Thetford, or around Alconbury along the A14.

Need a town.

There is nothing on Heavens above for 20:28ish and nothing on Calsky either.

The 19:58 flare (30 minutes earlier) was not in Cassiopeia but the Iridium satellite did pass through Cas, just not flaring while there. Flared was between Auriga and The Plough.

There was a flare at 19:31, an hour earlier and with the clock changes I wonder if the times on the Calsky site is correct, that came from Cosmo Skymed 1, but it was mag -1.6, somewhat dimmer. Will say there are some that do not generally have data on them so not predicted by sites. May have been one of them.

[Yamez]

4 minutes ago, ronin said:

30 minutes is no help, that is close to half way to Norwich, Thetford, or around Alconbury along the A14.

Need a town.

There is nothing on Heavens above for 20:28ish and nothing on Calsky either.

The 19:58 flare (30 minutes earlier) was not in Cassiopeia but the Iridium satellite did pass through Cas, just not flaring while there. Flared was between Auriga and The Plough.

There was a flare at 19:31, an hour earlier and with the clock changes I wonder if the times on the Calsky site is correct, that came from Cosmo Skymed 1, but it was mag -1.6, somewhat dimmer. Will say there are some that do not generally have data on them so not predicted by sites. May have been one of them.

Live in Soham, it was definitely a flare, started of dim got very bright then dim again. I had a look on heavens above too but nothing was there. May not have been an iridium, all i know is it was very bright  

[Corkeyno2]

20 minutes ago, Yamez said:

Live in Soham, it was definitely a flare, started of dim got very bright then dim again. I had a look on heavens above too but nothing was there. May not have been an iridium, all i know is it was very bright  

Might have been a meteor?

[Yamez]

1 hour ago, Corkeyno2 said:

Might have been a meteor?

Nah, far too slow for a meteor.

[alan potts]

I have seen some really bright ones from here which were easily the same as Venus and maybe brighter.

Alan

[LukeSkywatcher]

My 1st Iridium sighting was of a -8 mag. Heavens above confirmed it. 

[DirkSteele]

I have seen a few iridium flares that exceeded mag -7 over the years and they are always impressive (and fun to show someone who is not a stargazer) but for me it's the satellites that flare without warning that are the best.  Last year in Mozambique I was watch the Hubble pass over with a predicted max brightness of +2.4 and then suddenly it flared to around -5 before quickly dropping back to normal. That was definitely memorable!