Unusual flashing

From: Cristian Arezzini via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2020 22:34:23 +0200
Hello,
I regularly read the list but I almost never post, but today I have a
question on a weird sighting. It's possible that it's something trivial, if
so I apologize.
I've been seeing this "show" for several nights, several times per night,
shortly after sunset.
Basically in a point of the sky, with no visible satellite, I would see a
very bright flash, that repeats every few seconds, maybe 4 or 5 times, then
it stops. It doesn't look like an Iridium flash because 1) Iridium only
flashes once, while here I see several flashes; and 2) Iridium flares get
gradually brighter, then peak, then gradually get fainter. These here are
instant flashes, like a camera flash. Very bright, easily negative
magnitude.
As an example, tonight I saw one, at 22:08 local time (I'm located a few Km
North of Rome, Italy). It was near the Neowise comet. Four very bright
flashes, spaced maybe 3 seconds from each other, then a fainter flash, then
nothing for maybe 15 seconds, then another dim one.
The Heavens-Above app didn't show any satellite in the sky at that moment,
but maybe it only shows brighter visual satellites.
Maybe 10 minutes earlier, I saw another "event", not far from Arcturus.
Same kind of sighting, only maybe a bit fainter.
Between flashes I can see nothing at all with an unaided eye, so it's hard
to track the movement, but the location of the flashes seems to move at a
slower speed than a regular LEO satellite.

Is this a common, known sighting? I've never seen it before, except maybe
once 20 years ago, but I can't be sure. Maybe something seasonal, or
related to the specific time of day (shortly after sunset)?

Oh, it was not an airplane. Totally different light, plus the sky was very
clear so I would have seen it very well, and also Flightradar24 confirmed
no planes in the area.

Thank you for your attention,
Cristian
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Received on Tue Jul 21 2020 - 15:39:47 UTC

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