Bright Star Moving Quickly Across Night Sky

[BigRandy1]

Although I always look at the night sky when I walk my dog I've never seen anything particularly interesting.

Tonight I had just made it out the door and glanced up at the sky. I saw a very bright star moving quickly across the sky. I tracked its movement as it seemed (my perception) to move across and farther away from me. I had to move to keep track as it passed behind trees, and eventually it passed a point where it was still visible to me.

I was surprised by how bright it was. It was the brightest star in the sky. It also seemed to have a slightly uneven trajectory and to my eye (?) seemed to bounce up and down slightly at times.

Was this the ISS? Or a UFO?

[Demonperformer]

A satellite of some sort. Check out Heavens-Above Home Page to find out which one it was (enter your location and check the times)

HTH

[robbieince]

My bet is iss - there was a high bright pass at around 10 30 pm last night.

Regards

Rob

[Daniel-K]

id say the iss too. it a great sight to see i saw a 5 miniute pass down i wales the other day

[Tim]

Space station by the sound of it, it is incredibly bright!

[Gradie]

I've seen the iss the last few times I've been out and am still amazed by just how bright it is. Got it in the eyepiece on one night too, but it went by so fast there was certainly no structure visible.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

[Charon]

Great link Demonperformer thank you.

[S.A.M]

Probably the ISS, it can be brighter than Venus at times and that is/was the third brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon.

Peter

[JimStan]

Although it is a rare sight, it IS possible to see a flare from the ISS. Those flat solar panels ( and there are several of them ! ) can catch the sun's rays and direct them to a particular spot on Earth quite readily. And if you happen to be standing on that spot, you will be treated to an increase in brightness to greater than -3 ! That's BRIGHT !

[MjrTom]

Sounds like the ISS to me

With my Equinox 80 and 13mm eyepiece I tracked its movement across the sky a few weeks back. Not the easiest target to track but if you have a decent alt/az mount it is possible.

The "H" shape of the ISS was easily visible even at a pretty low magnification