Super fast satellite?

[Ciaran Meier]

Many years ago I must admit I was a fully paid up member of BUFORA, the British UFO Research Association.  It was a fairly serious group who tried to conduct some level of sensible investigation into unexplained phenomenon of various descriptions.  Some of the work they published was quite good.  I can recall some work into Ball Lightning which was quite respectable and involved the contribution of mainstream physicists.  Anyhow, one thing I did learn was that even experienced observers, pilots etc, would be prone to over estimating the velocity of a moving object within a blank field of reference.  If one is lacking important visual cues the brain will fill in the gaps.  Saying that however, in the many years of my astronomy I have witnessed aerial / atmospheric events that I still find inexplicable, including witnessing a naked eye very high speed glowing object zoom across my field of vision.  Some of this maybe NASA / military X-projects. Google "Project Pluto" to see what crazy stuff was in development in the 1960's, then consider what level of secret tech has been developed since then. 

Sprites ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150928-ten-strange-lights-that-appear-in-the-sky

[PJW66]

I've been an astronomer  for 40+ years. Have seen a few unexplainable things at night ,and also managed to capture one fast moving light in the daytime. One Sunday afternoon in February 2007. In the back garden in Coventry UK ,with my new Canon dslr + 105mm lens in my hand,  set up with fast shutter,infinity-focused...and within 10  minutes suddenly saw a bright light flying level with the north horizon,from east to west. Much faster than any low-level nearby fighter plane I have seen before. Probably too slow for a meteor however.Totally silent.Maybe 30 degrees elevation. Just about had time to bring my camera to my eye ,and fire off a burst of 3 frames. Ecstatic to find the object on one frame.
Image is a crop from the original 10mp raw .Shows a tiny yellowish-white light . I cannot stress enough how fast this thing was . Crossed most of the northern sky in less than 5 seconds.
I sent the image to well-known astronomy author Ian Ridpath, who rules out a meteor, and said it *could* be a helicopter.  I would say no chance.
Cheers,Phil

[Littering and____]

5 other people and myself saw this near Battleground, WA on Sunday August 2nd at about 2145.   It was travelling west to east. People were trying like mad to get their phones out to record it but it was way too fast and probably too dim. 

I track the ISS and satellites as does everyone in our group.  We were all, for lack of a better expression, blown away by what we witnessed. My sat app showed nothing.  I was able to look through my binoculars at it but all I could see was a yellow dot. I watched it as it fell over the horizon.  We kept our eyes in the sky for the next couple of hours but did not see it again.  

It was really moving. Straight and fast. It was really cool to see it. It seemed like less than 2 minutes from horizon to horizon. 

My only other thought was it was a weather balloon riding the jet stream. But i don't think they could travel that fast. 

All the nay sayers can believe and say what they want. I am here to tell you this was no ordinary satellite. New spy tech? 

[Jetfuel]

I’ve seen this super fast white light myself about a month ago.  I’m in Edmonton, Alberta.  Just by chance I was on my deck looking S.E. on clear evening just after sunset.  The bright light (around ISS magnitude) was travelling west to east about 40° above the horizon.  Like everyone here, I have seen thousands of aircraft, satellites, space junk and the ISS etc.  It was doing at least 3x the speed of the ISS on a similar path.  I caught it around south and watched it disappear just above the eastern horizon and took about a minute.

I read this thread after I seen the event.  Satellites can be very predictable.  The only thing I could think of was maybe someone is shooting one-time flyby recon satellites from a parked orbit?  Anyway, I am just guessing.  It was very interesting.

[Neil H]

Hi i saw it last night its fast stellarium  said its space x satellite 

[wxsatuser]

18 hours ago, Neil H said:

Hi i saw it last night its fast stellarium  said its space x satellite 

Which, one, a Starlink and time if you have it.

[Neil H]

It was a starlink one but didnt take a lot of notice of its number he has so many up there soon it will be all you see

Edited September 27, 2020 by Neil H

[wxsatuser]

4 hours ago, Neil H said:

It was a starlink one but didnt take a lot of notice of its number he has so many up there soon it will be all you see

The Starlink ones are re-entering all the time.

One re-entering might appear to be going a lot faster and of course be very bright.

Starlink 53 and 27 came in on the 26th, 1311 on the 25th.
21 on the 22nd
57 and 39 on the 18th
50 on the 17th
42, 69, 37, 78 and 35 on the 16th
36 and 54 on 15th
to name a few.
 

[Neil H]

Ok will keep an eye out and get the numbers this time 

Thanks for the info

[Marv A]

I would like to suggest general camera settings, if possible, perhaps 1/1000 sec and ISO 2000.  if you can bracket the exposure, it may help.

Best Regards,

Marv

[wkarotten]

As stated earlier, those Flying Lights In The Sky (FLITS) over our house are pretty hard to catch on 'film', but we got a few recorded, so here is one...

Any idea's what we are seeing here?

Cheers,

Willy K

[wkarotten]

Check at 1:30, climax zoomed in of 2 'blinking FLITS'.

Same video in 'HD' on YouTube : (in attempt to paste te link, cheers)

 

Hint: from top right to low middle a 'blinking' Flying Light In The Sky, gets company from another blinking FLITS coming in, from low mid, up.

 

The Sterrenwacht - Dutch Professional Stargazers - have not yet responded to any of our footage, so anyone?

Cheers

W

 

[wkarotten]

With randomly shooting the sky, out of 1.000+ photo's, apparently we framed this odd 'bright light', which when zoomed in appears to be...some weird thing?

Anyone to shine light on this mystery?

Cheers,

Willy

[SkyJamie]

Hey wkarotten,

Have you tried checking to see if there were satellites/debris passing the stars in your videos at the time you filmed these videos? Maybe look on heavensabove or similar sites

There is so much stuff up there now, the flashes of light you have recorded appear to be tumbling and or flaring satellites, if you identify what stars they are appearing by and the time you should be able to find what the objects are.

You never know what you'll see in the night sky so well worth recording things and taking pictures, and being ready to, i had 2 cameras within arms reach but i still didn't get any footage or pictures of the "super fast satellite" i saw that this thread is concerned with

[wkarotten]

Hi SkyJamie,

Thanks, but then again, how can a satellite or debris reflect light from the sun in the middle of the night - earth is blocking the sun, there is no light to reflect - creating a flash that is brighter than the brightest stars around? I have no idea what it is either...

Cheers Mate and success with the camera's

wk

[JamesF]

32 minutes ago, wkarotten said:

Thanks, but then again, how can a satellite or debris reflect light from the sun in the middle of the night - earth is blocking the sun, there is no light to reflect

That depends on the relative positions of the Sun, Earth and the unknown object.  Just because the Earth is between the observer and the Sun does not necessarily mean that it is between the unknown object and the Sun.

James

[wkarotten]

Of course JamesF! Still the earth is in between the sun and any orbiting object over our heads at that time of day.

Early after sunset and the SpaceX series flies over, you can see the satellites disappearing, each next one a little earlier, a little more to the West disappearing, with this 'visibiliy horizon' moving to the West. Due to the sun going more down behind the horizon. After an hour to 2 hours those orbiting satellites and debris above us are no longer lit by the sun.

So, the question remains, if it cannot be sun lit, what is it?

WK

[Waddensky]

16 hours ago, wkarotten said:

As stated earlier, those Flying Lights In The Sky (FLITS) over our house are pretty hard to catch on 'film', but we got a few recorded, so here is one...

Any idea's what we are seeing here?

These are rotating satellites or tumbling space debris, they are quite common unfortunately. Satellites in MEO can be illuminated by the Sun most of the night.

15 hours ago, wkarotten said:

With randomly shooting the sky, out of 1.000+ photo's, apparently we framed this odd 'bright light', which when zoomed in appears to be...some weird thing?

Zooming in on these lights is not very helpful, as chromatic aberration and focus errors conceal the real source of the light.

[wkarotten]

You are right about MEO Star Forming, but regarding the velocity, which is +/- comparable to ISS or SpaceX flying over in Low Orbit, if in MEO at this speed, it needs to be powered in some way,  not to fly away, right? Besides, if in MEO satellites or debris would not be visible with the naked eye, which this is, and certainly not be flashing this bright.

You are right again about the zooming in of course, nevertheless just curiously looking for any reference in the Star Gazers community.

Thanks anyway, cheers!

WK

[wkarotten]

accidentally posted twice, sorry

Edited November 6, 2020 by wkarotten
accidentally posted twice, sorry

[wkarotten]

With reference to prior, hereby a 36 sec. video of the 'westward moving visibility event-horizon' of a series of satellites flying over in low orbit during 6 minutes at around 9.00 PM, at 10x speed. The moving of the line of disappearance of the satellites is caused by the sun moving down below the West horizon, or better, by the earth rotating the camera position away from the sun, thus causing the earth to 'moving block' the sunlight to no longer reach the LEO satellites, causing LEO's to be invisible from the early hours of night.

Right?

Cheers,

WK

[wkarotten]

Hereby a YouTube (link) to the original 6 minutes video at 1x speed.

FLITS 17mar20 moving event horizon

Cheers,

WK

[bikerboy1]

this morning at 6am i seen this fast moving light. I am in south central Manitoba. this object had flashing white light on side and seem to have steady one on front. there was no other becons on it. it moved from west to east in southern sky and moved arcoss the horizon in about 15 secs 

[scotty1]

Last night Thursday 22nd April at 21.08 I saw an orange light tracking west-east. It was north of Capella around 50 degrees above the horizon.

Traveling about 3 times faster than ISS, a low orbit satellite I'm guessing.

[SpaceGuy1]

Hi there!
I know I am late for this discussion. But I was out for my daily (nightly) sky view. I wanted to have a look at the stars brightness, and the how much the moon was reflecting and so on... boring stuff. After doing my little study lesson, I laid down on the ground, to just enjoy how lucky we are to have such a amazing star sight. I then saw a plane fly over the sky (A very blurred little red blinking light flying over the night sky). Then out of the blue, I look to my right (North), and this extremely bright thing appears, brighter than the star Kullat Nunu (Which is one of the brightest stars in Denmark, it was also brighter than Vera, also a very bright star in Denmark). But, I was looking at the blurry boring plane again, and I see that the bright moving thing, was catching up to the plane, quickly). I looked at my star map, my ISS alert, and the space station was no where near me, to be exact, it was the opisite side of the earth. This thing flew right past that plane, so I pulled out my air traffic viewer to see if there maybe was 2 planes in the sky, but no, there was only 1, and it matched the one I saw.

Like all the others, I have seen a space station fly past me before, but this was a lot faster (No sound, there was a reflecting light from the thing. It also moved from the northern part of the sky to the southern part of the sky in about 2min, like the others have said). I've thought about whether it could be other flying things, but they would have made a sound, of some sort, especially at the speed it was going. I also tried to move, to look at it at another view, maybe it was a little bug flying above me. But that thing didn't move out of line, it was attatched to the sky, like a flying object.

Still no clues on what this thing is? My first thought was also UFO (No... not aliens. Unknown Flying Object, aka, military power) Though Denmark is too trash at military power, so couldn't have been danish aircraft.

I love mysteries, they are what keep me interested in observating the sky, even if I don't figure it out.