Tumbling Iridium

[george7378]

I was out watching for Nanosail-D this evening, and I thought I saw it. It turns out that I actually saw the tumbling satellite Iridium 17, which would explain the very strange behaviour I saw. The satellite was sporadically flashing in and out of visibility, hopping between magnitudes in a random pattern. One moment it was not even visible, and the next it was as bright as the stars it was passing. I even saw it go from invisibility to what seemed brighter than Venus and then back to invisibility in about half a second, almost like a quick meteor suddenly appearing. It really was weird! Has anyone else seen this?