What was that?

[matt]

Whoa!

Was just taking a walk in the crisp cool Canberra air and saw something amazing in the twilight sky.

About 30-40 degrees elevation to the south east. It looked like a really bright individual car headlight.

Time was approximately 5.28pm.

Was it an iridium satellite or something else?

It was really ... really bright. Dazzling, in fact

[Dennis]

Hi Matt

At 5:28 for Brissie, SNP shows the following:

Iridium 51, 19 and 91, BUT they are only mag 2 or 3 and only a few degrees above the horizon. So, it looks like the culprit could be ERBS, Apparent magnitude=0.24.

Name: ERBS
Object type: Satellite
Rises: Today at 5:21:06 PM
Transit: Today at 5:27:20 PM
Sets: Today at 5:33:39 PM
Constellation name: Norma
Constellation common name: The Level
Constellation possessive form: Normae
Azimuth: 143° 0.838'
Altitude: 39° 39.366'
Hour angle: -3h 50m 23.1s
RA (JNow): 15h 33.052m
Dec (JNow): -57° 4.455'
RA (J2000): 15h 32.551m
Dec (J2000): -57° 3.046'
Ecliptic longitude: 246° 5.780'
Ecliptic latitude: -36° 38.559'
Galactic longitude: 323° 31.247'
Galactic latitude: -0° 45.875'
Distance from observer: 769 km
Distance from Sun: 1.0163 au
Apparent magnitude: 0.24
Orbit size: 6899 km
Angular size: 11 arcseconds
Approx Launch Date: 1984

Cheers

Dennis