A most unusal sight

[Rod66]

During my observing session tonight, I was just getting setup and was locating the Omega Nebula when I noticed a bright flare in the sky. Thinking not too much more of it, I kept looking for the nebula, when I noticed the flare again, just beneath the northern most star of scutum. I paid a bit more attention and the light flared again. I quickly got my scope onto it and found a little satellite moving slowly through scutum and towards E direction. Counting the pulses, it was emitting a bright light every 7 seconds. It otherwise appeared like a dim small satellite between the bright pulses. This occured at approximately 7.10pm. I followed the object for about 10 minutes - quite interesting and I assumed it must be rotating on its axis and reflecting sunlight off some part of its surface. It was far too bright to believe it was being emitted by artifical means. Now before anyone think's I've spotted a high flying jet, I had a 13mm eyepiece on my 8 inch giving me 92x magnification - it was still a pin point light. Then I stuck the barlow on giving me 184x mag and it was still a pin point light - no wings or other cabin lights visible.
I checked stellarium and couldn't find anything about that time, so does anyone have any ideas?

thanks

Rod

[erick]

A tumbling satellite?

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=32519

[acropolite]

I've seen the same object and same direction, Like Erick, my guess is a tumbling satellite of piece of space junk.

[TrevorW]

Confrimed looking east tonight about 7:00 very bright flash then nothing

[Inmykombi]

I too some years ago found something that was similar to your target.

I watched the object for about 2.5 hrs. It hardly moved in the sky, and I only had to adjust the EQ Mount every 10 mins or so to keep it in the field of view.

I called the Sydney observatory to confirm what I was seeing and got an answering machine.
I then called a member of the NSW Astronomical Society who confirmed that the object was "flashing" but the person I spoke to was seeing the flash at a different point in time than me from a different location. This meant that the object was tumbling and the reflected light was reaching the different location at a different time to me.

I then called Koolang Observatory near Buckety, who confirmed my observation, and continued to plot the course over a few hours.

It turned out that the object I was observing was a Japanese Satellite that was suuposed to go into a Geo-stationary orbit which but had a major positioning rocket failure.
The satellite then went into an orbit between what I can remember being between 4 thousand and 18 thousand kilometers ( egg shaped orbit ).
Its name I still remember as KIKU 6.

Its now run out of power and is nothing more than space junk.

It is tumbling in orbit and reflects light back to Earth at regular intervals.
Due to its high altitude, it can be seen long after the sun has set.

Maybe thats what it is, but if not, maybe something similar.

geoffro.

[Spanrz]

Just had a lookie on my Starry Night. (Melb lat/long observations)

It had an Iridium Satellite (Irid no 4) go right through the middle of Aquila at around 7:05-6pm
Going from North to South but followed an arc, peaking at 35 degrees alt / direct East at 7:07pm.

Also another Iridium (Irid no 37) went through the similar path at 7:15pm, and peaked at 43 degrees alt / direct East at 7:17pm

All of the other satellites that were in the general vicinity, were many minutes before or after the 7:10pm timeline. (7:00 pm or 7:25pm)

Hope this helps or narrows the search down. :D

[Jules76]

I saw it too. I just assumed it was a misguided satellite due to it's slow movement and the light blinking on and off due to it spinning around slowly.

Pretty cool to hear that I wasn't the only one who saw it.