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I've seen this sort of thing about 3 times now - once at a Barambah camp, once at AstroRon's place, and once from my own back yard.
Yes they are satellites, moving very slowly due to the pretty high orbits they move in, although the sudden and "crips" flash makes them look like high altitude aircraft. One of these occasions there was very high atmosphere moisture which helped spread the flash slightly, making it slightly more noticeable.
We followed one of these satellites in my 12" dob on one of these occasions, through the scope I could count 3 dim flashes followed by the bright "naked eye" one, about 3-4 seconds between each of them in a repeating pattern. This 12 or so second rhythm repeated over and over until eventually we lost sight of the satellite behind some whispy clouds. Very cool and interesting aren't they?
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