Folks - I'm a newbie here, and very much an amateur, so please bear with me. I'm looking for help identifying a strange moving object that I spotted last weekend, and have been unable to find any information on after completing several internet searches. The object was very bright (I'd estimate 1 to 2 x the brightness of Venus) and the brightness was steady. It followed a straight path but had a very noticeable and regular side-to-side motion. The amplitude of the apparent wobble was about 4-5x the diameter of the object or more and hence was very noticeable. The motion did not appear to be symmetric (i.e. like a sine wave) but was more like a saw pattern that gave the appearance that it was accelerating and decelerating. It appeared to be fairly low altitude, completely silent, and relatively slow moving, taking about 4-5 min to cross the sky. Here's the pertinent info: Location: 47.14 N, -116.25 W (~60 miles SE of Spokane, WA) Elevation: ~4850 ft. Time: ~0500 UTC, July 11, 2009 +/- ~ 0.5 hrs (~1000 PDT local time) Direction of movement: West to East, possibly slightly WNW to ESE) Weather: Completely dark (before moonrise), clear and dead calm. I'm assuming that this is a satellite of some sort, but have seen few objects as bright, and have never seen anything in the night sky with a distinctive wobbling motion. Could anyone help identify this object? Many Thanks, -Tim ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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