Iridium Obs. & Identify Unknown?

JRBURCA@aol.com
Tue, 23 Sep 1997 02:44:20 -0400 (EDT)

While on Iridium watch, I saw another satellite going in the same
direction at about the same speed.  I've watched Iridiums making
evening passes approx. 0230-0345 UTC culminating 20-60 degrees
at azimuths 80-90 degrees in the eastern sky.  Looking for flares
but seeing mostly very dim objects even in 8x56 binoculars.  They
do seem to brighten a little as they reach the approximate azimuth
120-145 and some get just visible to my unaided eye (in an urban
area) in the southeast sky just before entering shadow.  All of these
BTW are going north-to-south.  The exception was last night at approx.
elev. 10-20 az. 357 a flare was seen through the binoculars but would
not have looked like much with the unaided eye.  This one culminated
at elev. 86 az. 267.4 at 03:49:46 UTC date 22 Sept. 97 UTC (Sept. 21
local) and was Iridium 11 #24842 going north-to-south.

Anyway, I was watching through the binoculars Iridium 16 #24841
culminating elev. 31 az. 82.8 at 02:57:25 UTC.  I *believe* the dimmer
object was Iridium 16 judging from what the others have looked like.
I also saw a brighter object about one third binocular field northwest
of the Iridium going also north-to-south at about the same speed.
Date was 23 Sept. 1997 UTC (22 Sept. local).  It was quite a bit
brighter than the Iridium.

Can anyone identify this unknown?

Jake Rees
Burbank, Calif., USA
(118.3117 W, 34.1817 N)