Yesterday I saw what must have been two stars in broad daylight, or
else I saw two geostationary satellites flaring brightly. I'm betting
on the former, but it would sure be exciting if it were the latter!
Even seeing stars in daylight is pretty neat -- I have once before seen
in daylight what was later identified as Jupiter, but I did not know
that any stars were bright enough to share that honor, thus my
speculation that I was seeing flaring geostationary satellites.

Here's the information:

I was watching an airplane cross the sky when I saw these two points of
light. Had my eyes not already been focused on the airplane it is
doubtful I would have seen the two points.

It was broad daylight* (about 1900 local time, Sunday, September 10,
2006, Sarasota, Florida, USA, or 2300 UTC September 10, 2006), and the
only thing that might have helped improve the viewing in that part of
the generally clear sky is that a heavy layer of cirrus had blown off a
thunderstorm, and in a hole in that canopy the sky was RELATIVELY
darker than the clear sky elsewhere. (Coordinates for Sarasota: 27.34
north; 82.53 west.) (*Sunset was at 1939 local.)

What I observed: Two points of light about three or four degrees apart
and about equal brightness. The brightness was steady and did not vary,
and I observed these points for about five minutes until finally the
cirrus canopy obscured them. The points of light had no apparent
motion, and their color was bluish white. I can't estimate the
magnitude, but it had to have been pretty bright for me to have seen
these objects in full daylight?

The azimuth was approximately NNE, and the elevation was approximately
30 degrees above the horizon.

Through binoculars the points remained just that, points. If they had
been weather balloons I think that my 8X binoculars would have been
powerful enough to have resolved some kind of shape, therefore I'm
guessing that these objects were not in the atmosphere.

So, what do the members of the group think I saw? A couple of bright
stars, viewed under just the right daylight viewing conditions, or
could it have been brightly flaring geostationary satellites? I don't
even know if there are any geostationary satellites in that part of the
sky - aren't most (or all) of them parked in equatorial orbits and
would have required me to have been looking southward instead of
northward?

A puzzler, huh?

I thank the group in advance for any help that might be rendered in
helping to identify what I saw, or at least eliminate from the list of
possibilities what it probably wasn't (a couple of geostationary
satellites).