In article .com, galwacco wrote:
Hey Folks!

I got a question! I live in southern Brazil, declination 27. As I was
driving to work, I looked at the sky and I saw an object of aparent
magnitude of 3 bouncing to 2, it was no star , for it was 7:55am,
which in this season, is broad daylight already, and its magnitude
kept changing, I believe, because of its movement that reflect the sun
differently.

The object was moving quite fast at my zenith towards northwest, when
I called my wife's atention to look at it, it was gone.

The thing is, I've seen quite a few satelites already, and they move
waaaay too fast, this object too almost 20 seconds to disapear from my
sight.

My question is, is it possible to see our satelites or the ISS on
broad day light? If not, what exactly would that be?


I would say that it was probably an Iridium flare. The timing sounds about
right, and they can be seen in daylight. Heaven's Above web sight is great
for tracking and spotting these sats. If you can get your hands on a GPS,
you can get a customized projection that looks ahead for months, for both
daylight and evening. Because they depend on sunlight, they are typically
brightest after sunset and before dawn. The brightest magnitude for these
is -9, I've only seen what has been predicted as a -9 a few times, but
anything from about -4 to -8 can be pretty spectacular at night. They are
also fairly senstive to your position, so using the prediction software and
sticking to one observing area works best. Their software also allows you to
save multiple sighting area's, so you can have one for work, home, one
for a friend on the other side of the world, etc. I turned into an "Iridium
Junkie" about 8 years ago, and I've got about 12 friends out now bitten
by the same bug. It's kinda fun to know exactly when one will be overhead
and grab some friends or neighbors and tell them to follow your hand
across the sky, and when the sat flares, well, it can sure lead to a lot of
interesting questions!
Good luck, I hope you continue to enjoy them and get a chance to
at least see one in darkness, they can be very impressive!

D.