Iridium Flares

Iridium Project is the name of a global telecommunication service using artificial satellites. We can make and receive a call wherever we are on the Earth using a special handheld phone. It's a great service but very costly because 66 satellites always have to be maintained. The project company once went bankrupt and it is run by a company different from the original one. If I sail across the Pacific Ocean in the future, I may use it, but usual people would never use it because of its high cost. I found an interesting iPhone application named "Iridium Flares." The 66 Iridium satellites sometimes reflects the sunlight and it looks like a flare. This application tells us the accurate date and time, direction and height, intensity of light and the name of the satellite. As I was staying up all nights, I could try and find the flare this morning. It was about a ten-second flare, but how interesting it is to see the flare just on the time and in the direction as predicted! Different from other astronomical events such as eclipses, the flares can be seen almost every day. I'm thinking about watching them as many as possible. 

Comments

[Aviatrix]

I've been reading your blog for a long time. I like your photos and am impressed at how much your English has improved. You rarely make grammar errors anymore, so maybe I'll try and push you to an even higher level of English.

In this entry you said "staying up all nights." Even if it's multiple nights, English speakers just say "staying up all night", as in "I stayed up all night three nights in a row."

I am pretty sure you know what "passive voice" is, such as when you say "the flares can be seen almost every day" and there is nothing wrong with using it. Using it a lot is quite formal, and I think you are doing it to avoid having vague subjects like "They have to maintain 66 satellites" or "You can see flares almost every day." You might sound more like a native speaker if you used those expressions more, but there's another trick you can try in English and that's to use nouns when the subject of the verb isn't that important. "It's a great service, but maintenance of 66 satelites is very costly."

Oh and "watching them as much as possible" (not "many").

Interesting article, too. I didn't know about Iridium flares.

[mochi]

> Aviatrix

Thank you very much for your good advice about my English. I really feel that it is a great help for me to improve my English. I'll email to you later.

[Kanji]

I am still debating in myself if I am going to have Iphone or Blackberry. It seems that I phone has lots of applications, that sound pretty usuful. On the other hand, I am wondering if I could maneuver all applications that I download like this one. At any rate, thank you for the information.