Very bright point source eyeballed circa 23:39 near Leo

Guys n Gals

I'm not a visual observer and my estimate of location, magnitude, and colour is poor.
I was out having a smoke (about 23:39 BST) - light cloud with intermittent gaps - one wouldn't be conducting an observing session. Only brightest stars breaking through even between obvious clouds. From my location (Clonsilla, D15) event was about 45 degrees alt and in direction of SW (maybe W by SW) I saw a very bright point-source (no apparent extension) transient event lasting about three seconds. This object had no perceptible angular motion (therefore I'm discounting Iridium flare). It was as bright - if not brighter - than the ISS (when without cloud). It was bright enough to cause an illuminated disc in the cloud around the the source. Colour appeared white but may have had a blue tinge (on mature - or corrupted - recollection).

I quickly loaded up Cartes du Ciel and would place the observation in the vicinity of the Constellation of Leo.

One of those adrenalin moments - but I suspect I shall never know what it was.

Mark C

I saw the exact same thing in the same area of sky around that timelast night!
I've seen these flashes before and from
what I believe them to be are geostationary sats

As I reflect on the experience - due to the the absence of reference background stars my observation of no angular movement may be questionable (though that was my perception). An Iridium flare is still a candidate. whatever it was - I haven't seen that before.

Mark C.

I've seen these before too. Almost certainly a reflection from a geostationary satellite.

'GPS PRN19' was in that area, it moves very slowly copared to other satellites, could be it... just googling images they seem to have big reflectors. It should be in the same place in Leo at apx 23:20 - 00:00 tonight.

Graham.

These are some of the stange flashes I have gotten over the past few weeks, can a satillite turn that quickly once? if it was tumbling you would expect it to be repetitive or like an iridium flare it would give direction. But none of these would be as long as 3 seconds, maybe a meteor 'heading straight for ya!' which would explain the cloud being lit up...