What was that?....

[Mrlangston]

Hi everybody. I've just got in after my first look at Saturn - wow! I guess I set myself up for disappointment so was very pleased that the rings were clearly visible even though I lost track of it a few times!

One of the times I was lost, I was looking through the (frankly useless) red dot finder to get my way back again and there was a flash of light just below Saturn. I am a little puzzled because it was too short in length and was over too quickly to be a satellite trail. I checked www.heavens-above.com for iridium flares and I am not due one for my location.

Did anybody else see anything similar? Any ideas to what it could be?

Michael

[Daniel-K]

Sounds like a metor.

[Mrlangston]

I dd reply earlier so apologies if this appears twice.

I thought it was too bright to be a meteor. When I've seen a shooting star it has always been fairly faint so could this have been a larger object or at the right angle for me to view? The brightness seemed to intensify and then tail off but this all happened in under a second.

Thanks for your quick reply.

Michael

[ronin]

There are other satellites then iridium ones that flare, so maybe one of them, used to have the site for them but lost it when the old PC died.

Piece of tumbling debris is another one.

Also we see and so think of meteors streaking across the sky, you could simply have seen on heading more or less towards you, so no trail, just a short brightening as it burns up.