This Monday night (May 6), a few minutes before 11pm, one of the two remaining Iridium communication satellites will be flying over Portland. As it does, its alignment should be correct so that one of its flat antennas will reflect the sun (over the horizon to us, but visible 500 miles up), down to the ground, producing a bright, fast moving light against the night sky, called a flare. This will be one of the last chances to see this phenomenon before the remaining two of the original 66 satellites are deorbited later this year.
The satellite tracking site HeavensAbove.com has predictions of when flares will be visible at a given location for the remaining Iridium and other satellites, as well as when the ISS will be visible overhead. Keep in mind the only two remaining Iridium sats are #61 and #97. You might see predictions for #45 and others but they've been deorbited. :'( The satellite will rise over the Northern horizon at 22:56 with the flare occurring in the North Eastern sky at exactly 23:00, about 25 degrees above the horizon, peak brightness lasts 5-10 seconds. Link to pass details, including where to look in the sky, below. (Note the star chart shows east on the left.) https://www.heavens-above.com/flaredetails.aspx?fid=0&lat=45.5231&lng=-122.6765&loc=Portland&alt=10&tz=PST Future Iridium flare predictions for Portland: https://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx?lat=45.5231&lng=-122.6765&loc=Portland&alt=10&tz=PST The weather should be clear, so if everything ends up where it should (which sometimes doesn't happen, so fingers crossed) it should be a great site. Get photos or video if you can!
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