Strange things you've seen while looking up (part 2)

[Manok101]

Without a doubt the most mind bending thing ive seen are what is known as blue jet lightning. These appear to go upward instead of downward. I saw three of them once on a thanksgiving beach trip near the horizon out over the ocean.I also watched a soundless thunderstorm very close by, no rain, wind or sound, just lightning, and clouds. Weather can be almost as entertaining as the night sky, what've you seen weather or astronomy related that made you scratch your head

[laser_jock99]

Don't know if it was blue jets or 'sprites' but I saw something similar once. I was observing under a perfectly clear sky from a dark sky site but I kept seeing 'flashes' out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought I was imagining it but then I stopped what I was doing to take a proper look. I waited a minutes and there it was again- a distinct blue white coming from below the observable horizon. Not only that there activity to both North & South.

I put it down thunderstorms which were active at the time more than 100 miles away over Ireland & the Bristol Channel. No sound was heard but whether it was just plain lightning I was seeing or the more elusive 'sprites' I can't tell. Either way I think a dark sky site helps in seeing these elusive phenomenom.

[allcart]

I will always remember the first fireball I saw. It was late 60's or early 70's, (I was a teenager at the time)

I was walking home with a couple of friends across a playing field that had been used as a chalk dump while building was in progress around my part of town. It was late evening and quite dark.

Suddenly it got very light!!! so light that you could see everything quite clearly. Imagine a full moon on a clear night, then add 3 more moons. I mean this was really bright.

Instinctively I looked up to see where the light was coming from, and saw what seemed like a huge ball of fire streaking across the sky above us. From what I remember, it seemed to be going at a fantastic speed but was visible fror quite a few moments.

It disapeared over the horizon and everything went dark again. VERY EERIE!!

My first thoughts were that we had seen a meteor, but it may have just been a fireball. I think there were news reports of strange fires in Wales the same night, but can't find any trace of it now.

[dtr42]

back in the 70's we [me and my mates ] saw what looked like a meteor ,bright moving very slowly with what looked like smoke trails . it turned out it was venus [was reported in loads of local papers ,even had the coastguard launching as they had repotrs of flares over the clyde ] the smoke trail was high clouds that as the sun was just over the horizon made it look like smoke trails .never seen it again [but it inspired me to take up astronomy in my late teens ]

[jason.p]

A few years back I saw what I believe were two satellites moving together SW to NE then two more joined them one from the west and the other from the east. They moved together then till they were out of sight. My wife and I both saw them. I can only assume they were aircraft, or maybe two satellites and two aircraft, but there were no obvious nav lights or sound and they were the same brightness and size and travelled at the same speed. I've seen multiple satellites since, but nothing quite like this.

[LukeSkywatcher]

When i was about 12 yrs old i was sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window. It was a beautiful day with blue skies and it was very warm. I noticed a ball about about 8-12" in diameter hovering just above the garage roof. It was blue/white in colour and it remained in the same position for about 20 seconds before simply vanishing into this air.

I later found out that it was most likely "ball lightning". A very rare thing to see.

[gliderpilot]

On one of our first Salisbury Plain meetings, a diffuse cloud appeared against the dark sky in the north east. It was visible for a good few hours and unlike the cumulus clouds that occasionally drifted through this didn't move.

Furthermore as the stars rotated over several hours, the cloud remained fixed relative to our local horizon.

Turned out it was a sounding rocket from the European Space Agency range in Kiruna that had vented a marker in the upper atmosphere to measure the high altitude winds.

We just happened to see it from southern England although we didn't know what it was at first.

Like all of these things, it makes sense when you know what it is!

Clear skies

Mark

[SoulFrenzy]

I hadn't had my scope too long and I had it out one night showing my brother in law a few things and I was trying to find something... maybe a star cluster or something.... and I have seen satellites in my scope before like little white dots moving rather quickly. what ever it was, it looked just like that but it was stationary and it seemed to blink. I haven't that faintest idea of what it was. I always chalked it up to geosynchronous satellite.