Spotting the new Iridium satellites

[Wiu-Wiu]

In June, I was observing when suddenly something caught my eye. It looked like a wishing balloon, but following the movement, it grew like a string of lights. Then suddenly it struck me: there was a launch of 10 new Iridium satellites a while before, and what I was looking at was this 'train' of satellites and the launch vehicle. I even managed to spot it through my telescope, showing a string of bright spots, but with smaller spots in between them, just a bit 'offset' of the line. 

 

Now there's a view you don't see every day!

 

well.. Spacex just launched another 10 of them! So keep your eyes open, they may fly over your head tonight!  

I looked for flight data, but it might be too soon to track them. If anyone finds them, please let us know! 

[bottletopburly]

i was under the assumption that the newer ones wouldn't be visible like the old ones 

[Wiu-Wiu]

They look like regular satellites, I think they won't flash like that anymore.

[Dave In Vermont]

It appears Stellarium is keeping up-to-date in already adding them to it's data-base. Check out the 17th magnitude on this one:

 

Click On Image for Full Size.

Happy Hunting,

Dave

 

 

[Subdeo]

Wow! sounds like quite a sight. I hope to see that phenomenon someday myself.