I’ve been hauling-ass over Heavens Above for the past few minutes, and I can’t find anything that fits this observation.

James and I were inaugurating his 6″ Celestron last night, doing some astrophotography Towards 2115 local time (2015 UT) we noticed a bright orange object (K-class colouration) in the western dusk, not too far from Venus in the sky; I would estimate it as magnitude -2, possibly more.

We followed the track over perhaps 5 or 10 degrees of arc, and it was moving slowly enough that James managed to point his scope and we could watch it for a few seconds. At that point I called for a timecheck and it was 2117; the object faded, still not having moved very far, its brightness pulsing – presumably due to rotation.

Heavens Above shows nothing bright enough; last night I found a prediction for Envisat at about the right time, but at a much, much lower magnitude than what we observed; the prediction has since been changed with updated elements I suppose.

It wasn’t the ISS nor the Shuttle – no passes correlate; and it wasn’t an Iridium flare either.

So it’s a mystery – I am wondering about the shuttle main tank, perhaps?