I saw a fast moving object below the tail of Hale-Bopp from Ireland moving N-NE towards the horizon. Could it be a satellite?

Phillip Montgomery of Northern Ireland (rathcoole@bytes.org) on 14 March 1997 writes:

"On 12/3/1997 I was watching Hale Bopp at 22:10 GMT and saw a veryt bright object suddenly appear below the comet's tail. I tracked it for about 1 minute and it moved North-Northeast towards the horizon near magnitude 0.0."

Satellites that move this fast are usually seen only very soon after sunset during twilight. I was probably a plane would be my best guess.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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