SPACE MIRROR EXPERIMENT

On 1999 Feb 4 the Russian Znamya-2.5 space mirror experiment, attached
to the Progress M-40 spacecraft in low Earth orbit, will be used to
illuminate selected nighttime regions of the Earth with reflected
sunlight at an intensity of up to 10 times that of the full moon. The
illumination patch will be 6 km in diameter and will pass over a given
site in about 1 to 2 seconds. Observatories may wish to take precautions
to avoid  damage to equipment and observations. The experiment will last
from Feb 4 1134 UTC to Feb 5 0213 UTC, and announced targets include
Kazakstan, Ukraine,  Belgium, Germany, Canada and northern USA. More
details of the experiment program are available at
http://src.space.ru/page_30e.htm and
http://www.skypub.com/news/special/znamya.html.

The IAU says that this experiment really sucks..... [I'll leave this bit to you]


[I think the Australia thing is a red herring, I suspect they
see that Mir is overhead but don't understand that the mirror needs
to be actively pointed to be at maximum brightness]

  - Jonathan