Naked eye observation

[prasadka]

Hi all,

Extremely clear night here in Ipswich. Just sat outside in the lawn looking at the night sky with my little Jessops bino. I found two very interesting objects. I could easily locate the pleiades high above. I could locate a fuzzy blob next to either camelopardis/cepheus, not far from Cassiopea. I could not identify it, becasue I was looking through the tiny winy Biny er.. binos. Can someone help me identify it please?

Also what was that that just darted across eastern sky in the southerly direction? It travelled too far to be termed as a shooting star, and was too bright to be called a satellite. Was that the 17P Holmes? I thought people observed it through their scopes- it moved way too fast to track using a scope for a reasonable length of time?

Any tips will be much appreciated.

Regards.

Prasad

[GazOC]

The first object sounds like Holmes (a stationary, fuzzy blob), a comet doesn't move anywhere near near enough see see it move in the manner you describe for the second object....

[Whippy]

Funny you should mention that Gaz as I had my brother-in-law round last night and whilst having a look at Holmes, he said to me sort of seriously 'Oh, I thought it'd be moving or there'd be some kind of movement' at which point I explained to him that when you're up in a plane over the ocean, you don't see the waves moving do you...

Tony..

[GazOC]

I showed a guy in work last night and he had the 'comic book' idea that a comet should be flying across the sky with a large tail in its wake. He was distinctly under whelmed with comet Holmes through my 8x40 binos.....

[prasadka]

I showed a guy in work last night and he had the 'comic book' idea that a comet should be flying across the sky with a large tail in its wake. He was distinctly under whelmed with comet Holmes through my 8x40 binos..... rolleyes Wink

Actually so was I, until you folks told me so. :insects1:

So what could the second object have been? this was around 10 45 ish and darting at breakneck speed across- some sort of flare, perhaps?

Cheers,

Prasad

[GazOC]

Maybe a fireball? They are generally slower and brighter than shooting stars?

[Astroman]

Fireballs, meteors and shooting stars are all the same phenomena. The speed with which they appear to move across the sky depends on their speed relative to us and the angle in which they enter the atmosphere. A meteor moving horizontally from you will appear to move much faster than one coming at you, given the same velocity. It was a meteor most likely, and who said there was a limit to how long they appear? I witnessed a fireball that stretched from the eastern horizon straight overhead to explode in the west/southwest. Spectacular! The size of the granule causing the meteor also is a factor. Most Perseids for instance are merely dust grains in size, while Leonids move slower and are grains of sand in size. A "really big" meteor may be as much as 1mm across.