2008-10-26 - Woodinville, WA - Light

Possible pair of satelites, but I wanted to list it here in case somebody saw more.

I walked outside and looked to the south and observed Jupiter. I am pretty familiar with the night sky, and Jupiter was to be expected. But I quickly notices a pair of “stars” to the left of Jupiter by about 15 or 20 degrees. If this pair was two marks on a clock, I would say they were at 10:30 and about 4:30, separated by the width of my little finger at an arms length. These two lights were bright, as it was not totally dark yet, but they were clear to be seen. They were low to the horizon, maybe just lower than Jupiter’s relative height above the horizon. Being a bright pair was unusual, and after staring at them for about a minute, I just felt like they were moving faster than…stars move due to earth’s rotation. So I tried to mark their position to a tree branch, and I do believe they were moving away from me, to the SSE, getting closer to the horizon. The one at 4:30 position faded out first, and then the one at 10:30 faded out. Probably satelites, but the pair is unusual for me to see. I have seen three satelites moving together in the past, in the mid to late 90’s. So I know it happens, but like I said, I just wanted to post this little piece that I did observe, in case somebody saw more of it, for verification purposes. I checked for ISS passes, and I couldn’t find one during this time frame. There was a listing for Cosmos 1408, but…I think I saw this pair prior to when Cosmos would have passed over as a single object. Oh well. Still waiting to see the one light that stops and takes a left! PD...just delete this post if nobody else saw anything interesting. I just wanted to give witness to the "pair" of objects. Possibly two satelites that faded out near the horizon due to atmosphere. I just don't see pairs or multiple satelites that often.