Satellite or Asteroid passing Saturn? 21-3-2012

[ArmyAirForce]

I was watching Saturn for some time tonight while my camera battery was recharging. Visibility was very good, and I was able to make out cloud belts, the Cassini Division in the rings, Titan, Tethys, Rhea, Dione and if I glanced away slightly, I was sure I could make out something where Mimas should be, but not Enceladus.

However, while I was watching, something flew by. I was viewing with a 10mm eyepiece ( to give you an idea of the field of view ), and the object passed within about 1.5 to 2 ring diameters from Saturn, heading from the side that Titan was on ( from the left in the eyepiece ) past Saturn and off to the right. While my field of view wasn't massive, the speed it passed gave the feeling of a satellite. I couldn't find any satellites on Stellarium that should have been there, so was it a satellite or and asteroid. The time was approximately 11:30pm.

The only satellite I found on stellarium, was Cosmos 2228, but that seemed to pass too far away to be in my field of view and according to stellarium, its orbit was about 90 degrees off from the direction I saw it.

[The Warthog]

It may have been a satellite that is too dim to be part of the list for observers. I have often seen satellites pass by. There are an awful lot of them. An asteroid wouldn't move noticeably in the short time you were watching, unless it was very, very close to the earth, and then we'd be hearing about it in the news.

[lukebl]

If you could see it moving that fast, then it was a satellite. Asteroids generally move at roughly the same speed as the planets, so their motion is barely perceptible except over a period of hours. There's a vast number of satellites out there, and aren't all on Stellarium. Most likely a geostationary satellite, of which there are hundreds at this declination in the sky.