Very bright point source eyeballed circa 23:39 near Leo

I alos have seen plenty of these, I would put a lot of them dowm to spacejunk, but they could also be satellites

Or....the visible part of a gamma ray burst ! Now wouldn't that be cool !

Keith..

Thanks for the replies chaps - this was a first for me.
Completely overlooked the fact that comm-satellites are geostationary (doh!).
Was completely in awe of an apparent stationary point source of such brightness and duration (though my stated duration feels suspiciously exaggerated now).

Life is one long learning experience - fascinating.

Now I'm over that - its time we sorted out all this crap in the sky - "down with sort of thing!"

Mark C

I have also witnessed flashes like these through the years including one that was momentarily bright enough to cast a brief shadow. Not a brilliant shadow, but an obvious one. If you do a lot of hours observing from a dark site you are bound to see one.

Seanie.