Went outside and was setting up astronomy binoculars on a tripod when i noticed over my head a white star-like object, about +2 magnitude, moving slowly southward from west of auriga, about 80 degrees elevated. it continued to move slowly southward, about 40 degrees until it was about parallel in the sky with rigel (in orion), and still high in the sky, ten degrees from zenith. it came to a stop, dimmed, then dimmed out all together for a few seconds. it appeared again, dim white, then it became orange, reversed direction and moved about ten degrees north (toward me). (note: i have noticed with these types of objects that velocity and luminosity varies directly; color changes are no accident.) the pseudo-star then reversed direction again, moving southward, back to where it was. it was positioned about twenty degrees southwest of the pleiades and 35 degrees from rigel. this is nearly the position of menkar (cetus). after this point, either the object remained in front of menkar, or dimmed out and disappeared. there was no more movement for the next hour when menkar moved out of my viewing area. menkar is a giant red class star; what i saw in that position with my binoculars was yellow.