Object spotted tonight

Clear skies here on the Derry/Donegal border tonight, so I've taken advantage and been out having a gander at skys.

I spotted what I believed to be a satellie coming from the NE towards the general direction of the constellation Constellation Cygnus. However, it seemed to change direction rather rapidly after a brief period of what seemed like "hovering". It turned to a more North Westernly direction. I was following it for a good two minutes or so before this happened. Any one else see it?

As I'm fairly new to this I hope my bearings are correct.

Disclaimer: This is not a UFO report:silly:

Hi Sopho,
Over the past few days I've been tracking iridium satellites with the scope, I noted that many of these come from the north, between the NE and NW, when they are near the horison they can appear to hover from our point of view although they travel in a roughtly straight line and should never appear to abruptly change direction.
Would you be able to name the constellations it passed through so as to pick out an orbit, can you remember what time it was?, I might be able to track down the satellite for you presuming it was a satellite of course.

LOL. I was simultaneously booting up Starry Night PLanetarium software while loading these forums and I saw your thread title. I was sure I had the answer to your question without even having read your post. I've had this lucky nack lately off just happening to go outside when an Iridium Satellite flared or meteor streaked. Tonight I went outside at about 11:35pm and looked up. Straight away I saw what I knew to be a Satellite and what suprised me was it was very very bright. Brightest I've seen other than the ISS or Shuttle. Got around to checking what it was on Starry Night and it was UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite).

I was even more sure I had your answer when I started reading your post and I read the word Cygnus. I saw UARS clear my roofline in Hercules and fly straight through Cygnus. It was brighter even than Vega. Starry Night confirmed. Mag -0.64.

Turns out when I read your directions that it couldn't have been the same object unless you've got your compass points mixed up. UARS rose in the SW, went through Hercules and Cygnus near zenith and set very near due East. ie the opposite direction to what you described.

If you have an approximate time, I could check Starry Night for you to see what it was.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm a relative new comer to tke sky so I'm unable to point out any of the other constellations in it's orbit. The main reason I probably seen it is that I'm fairly interested in the region in and around the summer triangle, so I spend a lot of time observing it. The best discription I could give is that it seemed like it would be moving towards bisecting the imaginary line between Deneb and Vega, however consierable closer to Deneb. However it seemed to change path before this.

And yes, I'm quite sure theres a logical explanation for this, it's just finding it.

ps) I dont have Stellarium on this computer, but I'll be sure to have a look as soon as I get on my other computer.

No, I'm quiet sure that I have the correct compass points. I really need to get on Stellarium though to be 100% sure though. Pity I dont have my bionoculars tonight...

SERT 2 if it was about 10:48pm. Matches your description of compass directions and followed a line between Deneb and Vega. Mag 1.4 so would have been brighter than all the stars in Cygnus bar Deneb which it was the same brightness as. Only star in the area that was brighter was Vega.

Satellite data

tinyurl.com/mhcpjq

Sounds Cool. Ion Thrusters!!

Looks like it was a funny coincidence that we both saw bright Satellites passing through Cygnus within an hour of each other only travelling in the opposite directions