Greetings SeeSat folks, A *reliable* astronomy friend of mine (with more than 20 years of observing at dark sites) observed a "temporary nova" Saturday night, and I suspect that it was a Molynia satellite with good reflecting geometry. I tried to track it down using SkySat with the Molczan elset file of May 14, and turned up the maximum altitude to 48,000 km, but came up empty. Maybe the satellite was not included in the elset? I can't think of anything of an astronomical phenomenon that could produce a 30 second nova, except a visual counterpart to a gamma ray burster, but I should leave that one alone - no sense invoking the incredible when something more "earthly" can do the trick. The location was 45 25' N 76 05 W, and the time was 9:20 pm EDT on Saturday night May 23 = May 24 01:20 UT. The object was right next to and the same brightness as the 3.3 magnitude star Megrez in the Big Dipper, the one where the handle joins the bowl. There were other experienced amateur astronomers who saw this too, they had time to get the object in the 8x50 finder scopes, then it faded quickly before they could see it in the eyepiece. It was not moving, as much as they could tell in the 30 seconds or so they had it in sight. With Guide 6.0 I get an alt of 78 degrees and an Az of 356 for that site and time. Any ideas? Thanks, Alister.