Hi all
Last evening, around 11.20, I was locking up the garden shed and I looked skywards, as you do. I was looking in the direction of Bootes when I noticed a satellite passing roughly between Arcturus and Izar, it was around 2nd magnitude. Then I saw a second satellite, this one brighter at 1st magnitude, and it was coming up behind the fainter satellite at great speed. I continued to watch as it overtook it's companion and speed on into Ursa Major, it did not overlap the faint satellite, but it passed very close, only around a degree or so separated them. The distance between them grew very rapidly, I followed the brighter of the pair as it passed through Ursa Major, when I tried to find the first satellite again I couldn't do so.
They were moving from south to north, I can surmise that they did not pass close in distance, the brighter satellite being closer to the earth, I just thought that it was interesting as I've never seen anything like that before.
I'm sure John Flannery can probably give me the name and designation of both satellites, perhaps they are called tortoise and hare.
Paul
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.
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