Something Strange in the Sky

[takuhii]

Hi,

I live in the Luton/Dunstable area and noticed something very strange in the sky this morning. there was something very bright and very large leaving a vapour trail, and moving very slowly across the sky, It looked much larger than a plane and seemed to have no wings. I was driving at the time and couldn't really observe much else without potentially dying at the wheel. Could this be the ISS, but then a vapour trail would indicate that it was in the atmosphere wouldn't it.

Could anyone shed any light on this, or did they observe the same thing as me this morning?

I'm not very clever when it comes to stars and the night (or in this case morning) sky. Any help would be greatly appreicated

Regards

Darren

[takuhii]

It was about 08:07am

[wxsatuser]

Just a plane no doubt.

At 8.00am, if it were high enough it would most likey be lit up by the sun.

[ronin]

Could it have been something like a 747 at height, you wouldn't see wings and the 4 engines would each produce a trail that can merge and so one big vapour trail.

There are a lot of planes from Europe heading to the US and a lot of cargo carriers use 747's. If they are simply crossing our air space I would suspect that ATC place them as high up as they can to just keep them out of the air traffic.

[emadmoussa]

Probably a low plane traveling into the sun glare.

[Paul M]

I'm a one time plane spotter and still get taken aback by the sight of some of these new birds heading towards a sunrise or sunset.

A plane cruising at 40,000ft can been seen maybe 60 miles or more away. Well, the plane can't but it's vapor trail can. If it's heading towards or away from the observer the trail can be very much foreshortened. 

I often watch planes from the decking of my caravan nr Penrith. From a slightly elevated position I can see planes over the North Sea or overhead Glasgow. Their trails look quite cometary!

The one stop shop for aircraft identification is http://www.flightradar24.com/54.26,-1.1/6

The vast majority of commercial flights can be tracked and identified using that site. Some planes don't operate the necessary transponder so you may see an odd aircraft that isn't showing but not often. Most military flights don't play ball either.

[takuhii]

I thought that might be the case, thanks guys. Thought i might have spotted the ISS for a moment :s

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I know the ISS is having problems at the moment, but if it's leaving a vapour trail it's in serious trouble. 

The ISS moves across the sky pretty quickly, taking something like 2-5 minutes to cross the entire sky, depending on how close you are to its orbital path. If you'd like to see it, there are a number of websites and apps that will calculate passes for you.