12 September 2004

Observing Location	Metropolitan Oval, Parkchester, The Bronx, NY
Atmospheric Conditions	It was a beautiful day with little apparent haze and cloud cover below 25%.
Instruments	naked-eye observing
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Iridium 57 Flare
Time	12Sep04; 1823 EDT
Category	Satellites
Comments	This was another daytime visible flare that I found listed at heavens-above.com that I was not able to see and can not find listed on the site after the fact. I am also not able find it listed at CalSky. This is causing me to doubt the validity of the Heavens Above predictions, at least in regard to daylight Iridium events. I was watching before and after the specified time and at the right patch of sky. There was some haze in the area but it was west of where the flare should have been. It was 1:15 before sunset so the sky was still very bright. I saw bunches of floaters in my eyes. They were like fireflies zooming across my field of vision in all directions. If I looked down they would disappear for a short period of time but always came back when I looked up. It is like they are crystals or plates in my eyes that are lighter than the vitreous humor so float to the top of the eyeball. When my head is level it seems that they are at the top of the eyeball and do not interfere with my vision. But when I tip my head up they migrate to the new top of my eyeball (relative to the center of the earth) and are then in front of my pupil and illuminated by the incoming bright daylight and sparkle like the flakes in a snow globe.