Hi,

Nice observation!

I can't for the life of me think that it was a satellite: I've observed
many Iridium flares, up to a magnitude of -7, one of them in what was
classed as 'broad daylight' but in reality was far closer to sunset
than your observation.

The key to deciphering your objects are your words: 'brightness was
steady' and 'observed these points for about five minutes'. This rules
out LEOs and Molniyas. LEOs like Iridium flash brightly for 15 seconds
or so but traverse one end of the visible sky to the other in that
time. Deep sky objects like GPS (27,000 km mean distance) or
geostationary (42,000 km) are not seen by observers with the naked eye
and even skilled observers (I've not seen one!) use binoculars or
telescopes or capture them on video with CCD and interpret the flaring
as a thicker line on the video. The flare time generally lasts a few
seconds as the object spins or tumbles or both. As you point out, the
geostationary objects are aligned equatorially, in the opposite
direction to where you were looking. Even if there was a satellite with
a period of one sidereal day but non zero inclination, it could appear
to remain above your location for 5 minutes but in that time it would
have travelled 900 km along its orbit and the chances of it putting out
a steady flare (ie no spin, no tumble, perfect sun-MMA-observer
alignment) are not high. Let alone the chances of a second object with
identical behaviour . . . and all one hour before civil twilight . . .

We can rule out a planet, as the ecliptic plane was behind you. I'm
going to guess that the thunderstorm cleared the dust / pollution from
the air, making the light appear not to twinkle while masking the sun.
I can't believe you would see a star of magnitude +2 or +3 under these
circumstances so if it was a star, I would start at close separation,
zero magnitude contenders such as Vega and Deneb. The angular
separation between the two isn't bad but the Az El is not quite the
same, but not wildly different.

Otherwise, I'd go for a pair of high altitude weather balloons or
personally, lean towards two aircraft in formation. Must have been a
few aircraft patrolling so close to September 11 and we've all seen
aircraft on a 20 to 30 degree or so approach to a city and had to check
back over several minutes to resolve exactly what it was. Just a few
weeks back I thought I'd spotted my first NOSS satellite formation and
was quite disappointed when three minutes later they separated and went
off in different directions.

Be interested to hear any alternative explanation.

Cheers,

Bill
Canberra, Australia