M11 - what have I seen?

[BGazing]

Date - 22 July 2017

Time...ermmm, around midnight, not sure.

Object: M11, magnification around 100x

I really was at a loss while observing...two point-like lights, akin to say 9th or 10th mag star floated through my field of view, flanking M11 from both sides. They floated over my FOV in parallel and complete tandem before disappearing.

I am used to airplanes, satellites and meteors going through my FOV...but this par which moved in absolute sync  was puzzling. Anyone has any idea what I have observed? I am sure there is a very simple explanation, but it eludes me.

[Galen Gilmore]

Iridium satellites can move tangent to one another at the same speed because all 66 of them orbit in 6 orbital planes. Look up double iridium flare and you will see what I mean.

[rockystar]

Setting Stellarium to Belgrade at 00:15 2017-07-23, location to Belgrade and zoom in on M11, I can see a pair of satellites shooting past, one following closely behind the other: EUTELSAT 9B & TIANLIAN 1-03

 

[SilverAstro]

3rd generation NOSS ( 1st and 2nd were triples, one out of the field of view perhaps ) dunno how visually far apart they are at various times ?  The Chinese have similar. Then there are various tethered satellite experiments but I doubt if the tethers would be that long.

[MarsG76]

I too would have guessed satellites.

 

[ollypenrice]

39 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

I too would have guessed satellites.

 

I would have guessed two satellites, too.

lly

[BGazing]

Thanks, guys, thought so. I was in Greece at the time, actually. It was heavenly, M11 flanked by two slowly floating dots in sync.

 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, BGazing said:

Thanks, guys, thought so. I was in Greece at the time, actually. It was heavenly, M11 flanked by two slowly floating dots in sync.

 

It looks like M11 is right in the path of all the geostationary satellites. The ones I can see around that time are pretty dim, mag 17.2 ish according to SkySafari.

 

[BGazing]

thanx  unfortunately, sct 8 cannot get to 17.2

i thought about geostationary pair, perhaps i was off timewise and there were some brighter ones.

[Stu]

11 minutes ago, BGazing said:

thanx  unfortunately, sct 8 cannot get to 17.2

i thought about geostationary pair, perhaps i was off timewise and there were some brighter ones.

I thought that would be pushing it. I couldn't see any other brighter ones at that time, will have another look.

[MarsG76]

It's either satellites or UFOs... until identified, the are unidentified flying objs... ;-)

 

[timwetherell]

I once saw an equilateral triangle of three satellites moving across the sky about 2° wide along each side. It was kinda weird but I assumed some sort of satellite constellation. I could see stars in the "triangle" bit as they went over so it was obviously three separate small objects  rather than a big thing with lights at the points. Just as well really or I might have had to wrap my head in tin foil and join a rather different internet forum

 

[Merlin]

It's getting to be like the M25 up there these days, with lots of CubeSats and other stuff being launched. It can only get more congested... .