Super fast satellite?

[epaddict]

I was wondering if anyone else has spotted the object my wife and others have seen recently. What appeared to be ISS (I get the alerts and rarely miss them when they fly over) but I knew it wasn't because there were no scheduled passes for a week in our area. Also...it was fast, I mean at least 4x faster than ISS. My wife and I saw it the first time on the night of the 7th of July and two nights later I saw it again just myself at almot the same time approx. 2200. I noticed it was reported by a man nearby where we Iive, he reported it exactly as we saw it. It has the same range of magnitude as ISS and it's definitely reflective light, it's altitude appeared lower than ISS however...this thing went from horizon to horizon in about a minute! Has anyone else seen this? Do we have some new satellites that can move like this? My wife and I were amazed at this object...it's the first time in about forty years of sky watching that I've seen an anomaly like this. I love tracking satellites but this one really blew my mind.

[cotterless45]

Klingons.

[Joves]

Funnily enough, I saw something very much like this only just last night. I was outside and looked up at the sky, thinking it would be nice to see a meteor or something (an absolute beauty was seen burning for over 10 seconds across our skies only last Thursday), when all of a sudden I noticed what looked very much like a low flying satellite, but travelling much quicker than any others I've ever seen. Will be very curious to hear if anyone knows what it is/was. It literally travelled across the sky, from zentith to horizon, in about 20 seconds!

Edited July 13, 2014 by Joves

[wxsatuser]

I was wondering if anyone else has spotted the object my wife and others have seen recently. What appeared to be ISS (I get the alerts and rarely miss them when they fly over) but I knew it wasn't because there were no scheduled passes for a week in our area. Also...it was fast, I mean at least 4x faster than ISS. My wife and I saw it the first time on the night of the 7th of July and two nights later I saw it again just myself at almot the same time approx. 2200. I noticed it was reported by a man nearby where we Iive, he reported it exactly as we saw it. It has the same range of magnitude as ISS and it's definitely reflective light, it's altitude appeared lower than ISS however...this thing went from horizon to horizon in about a minute! Has anyone else seen this? Do we have some new satellites that can move like this? My wife and I were amazed at this object...it's the first time in about forty years of sky watching that I've seen an anomaly like this. I love tracking satellites but this one really blew my mind.

The fastest speed for a LEO satellite at the lowest possible Earth orbit, 150Km, is approx 7.8Km/sec.

ISS is at approx 330Km and moving at 7.7Km/sec.

So no satellite will appear to move 4 times faster than ISS.

[epaddict]

That's what blows my mind! This had every appearance of a man made satellite, it must have been reflective light as there were no artificial colors or strobes. This thing went so fast...it had have been traveling at least 40,000-50,000 mph. I'm certainly no expert on satellites but I've been a satellite tracker for years and this was just so bizarre! It's strange too because I saw it twice, it was in a different orbit but very close to the same time at night. My curiosity is really peaked on this one.

[bejay1957]

From some of the other forums I frequent there is much (unsubstantiated) speculation on all manner of non-listed military orbital stuff.  Guess one point would be on what would need to be orbiting at that estimated velocity.

[epaddict]

My aim is to be set up and try to get a shot of it with my dob, I've seen some pretty good detail  on the ISS but as fast as this is...it will be a challenge to say the least. I just love the technology today...being able to not only see which satellite is going over but the get alerts as to when they're coming...is just awesome! I love tracking satellites almost as much as peeping through my scopes.

[epaddict]

I've seen this again night before last in almost the same orbit as the last! My curiosity is really peaked now. This has every appearance of ISS but I know it isn't because I have the program and watch ISS every time it passes, also the speed that this object travels. This thing goes from horizon to horizon in about 2 - 2 1/2 minutes. I'm hoping others have seen it and have some idea's!

[Steve Ward]

Some evidence would be nice ... ... try filming the next pass ... !

[greglloyd]

I saw what looked like a very fast satellite two nights ago. It was moving from approx south to north and was really shifting compared with any other satellites I have seen fly over. Direction of travel was from Orion, Taurus, through Perseus, etc. I would estimate it to have been moving at least 2 to 3 times faster than what the ISS would appear to be moving. It really caught my eye because of the speed actually.

Edited March 14, 2015 by greglloyd

[happy-kat]

I captured a very bright moving object a week ago going west to south that was not a plane and was very bright.

Edited March 14, 2015 by happy-kat

[Davey-T]

If it was reflected light it would need to be in a relatively high orbit not to be eclipsed by the Earth.

Dave

[Zakalwe]

From some of the other forums I frequent there is much (unsubstantiated) speculation on all manner of non-listed military orbital stuff.  Guess one point would be on what would need to be orbiting at that estimated velocity.

Unless it is powered, then it can only orbit as fast as orbital mechanics will allow. No faster, no slower.

[wxsatuser]

Basically to orbit the earth in a low circular orbit like ISS the object has to be moving at approx 8km/sec.

Why is this?

Satellites are falling all the time but they move quickly enough that their fall rate equals the curvature rate of the earth.

For every 8km towards the horizon the earth falls away by approx 5metres.

If you disregard atmospheric drag an object moving at 8km/sec will fall approx 5metres in one second.

Low earth orbit is in the range of 200 to 2000kms.

The speed range of objects in this LEO band is 6.9 to 7.8km/s for a circular orbit.

For an eliptical orbit the speed would would be in the range of 6.5 to 8.2km/sec

There is a special orbit, the Molniya, which is highly eliptical, here the speed range is 1.5 to 10km/sec.

If you see something that is moving a lot faster than your average satellite like ISS, it's most likely something closer

to the earth and more likely an aircraft.

[epaddict]

A person just a few miles from where I live has also reported this object and like "me" he's an avid sky watcher for many years, he described it exactly as I did. If I thought for a minute that this was an airplane I wouldn't have even mentioned it. I've observed aircraft at night my entire life and this (I would bet my life on it) is not an airplane. I've seen planes coming up from LA that are extremely bright when their lights are aimed at me but this craft is as bright as Jupiter as it fly's "overhead". I have never observed a plane with one large steady light on it's underside with no other lights anywhere else. If this were a jet aircraft (and it would have to be at this speed) it would have to be at a relatively low altitude for it to be so bright but there is no engine noise...it's totally silent. I have no idea what this is but I'm pretty sure of what it's not...! I believe people are often misidentifying things in the night sky because things happen so quickly and most aren't well versed in routine night sky objects.  After seeing this three times I've been able to record a steady and accurate description each time I've seen it. I know it's not a natural phenomenon and I have never bought into nuts and bolts alien spacecraft thing so I'm leaning very heavily toward some sort of new secretive technology. I'm going to keep trying to film it but so far it's eluded me when I'm out with the scopes set up. Two of the encounters have occurred as I was stepping out to my shop and I wouldn't even have time to get the camera out of the bag and of course when I "do" have it set up and ready to go...nothing! I doubt getting video would avail much anyway, unless I could zoom in as it went over at dusk. I would most likely just have another video of a light in the sky that proves nothing. I am glad to see that some others are reporting this on the forum as well...maybe more sightings will help shed light on what this could really be!

[Steve Ward]

Sorry but seeing is believing ... with nothing to see it's just another anecdote ... 

If it's such a regular/common sight then someone must have caught it on camera somewhere.

[Joves]

Plenty of people have probably caught it on camera however, considering the majority of cameras pointed at the sky are taking long exposure still images, it'll show up as a streak as regular as any satellite caught with a ccd.

[happy-kat]

If you know how long the exposure of a sub was and how many pixels long the captured line was can you work or how fast it was going?

[wxsatuser]

A person just a few miles from where I live has also reported this object and like "me" he's an avid sky watcher for many years, he described it exactly as I did. If I thought for a minute that this was an airplane I wouldn't have even mentioned it. I've observed aircraft at night my entire life and this (I would bet my life on it) is not an airplane. I've seen planes coming up from LA that are extremely bright when their lights are aimed at me but this craft is as bright as Jupiter as it fly's "overhead". I have never observed a plane with one large steady light on it's underside with no other lights anywhere else. If this were a jet aircraft (and it would have to be at this speed) it would have to be at a relatively low altitude for it to be so bright but there is no engine noise...it's totally silent. I have no idea what this is but I'm pretty sure of what it's not...! I believe people are often misidentifying things in the night sky because things happen so quickly and most aren't well versed in routine night sky objects.  After seeing this three times I've been able to record a steady and accurate description each time I've seen it. I know it's not a natural phenomenon and I have never bought into nuts and bolts alien spacecraft thing so I'm leaning very heavily toward some sort of new secretive technology. I'm going to keep trying to film it but so far it's eluded me when I'm out with the scopes set up. Two of the encounters have occurred as I was stepping out to my shop and I wouldn't even have time to get the camera out of the bag and of course when I "do" have it set up and ready to go...nothing! I doubt getting video would avail much anyway, unless I could zoom in as it went over at dusk. I would most likely just have another video of a light in the sky that proves nothing. I am glad to see that some others are reporting this on the forum as well...maybe more sightings will help shed light on what this could really be!

I'm not disputing what you saw but at the speed you report it just cannot be a satellite if it's a lot faster than ISS.

If it's reflected light and an aircraft I would expect the craft to be very high up to catch the sunlight, so may be you will not hear anything.

Could it be something top secret, possible, who knows, but I would think it would'nt be doing more than the low thousands of mph in the atmosphere.

and you would'nt want it to be reflective for sure.

[Zakalwe]

Could it be something top secret, possible, who knows, but I would think it would'nt be doing more than the low thousands of mph in the atmosphere.

and you would'nt want it to be reflective for sure.

There'd be a hell of a sonic boom if that was the case.

[Cath]

Certainly not an orbiting satellite/object of any kind. As others have repeated, anything much faster than the ISS would not remain in close orbit of the Earth for long. Elliptical orbits produce faster moving objects when it's close by the Earth, but they soon zoom away from the Earth - until it's next pass.

[epaddict]

I don't know what to think of this anymore, I was out tonight ready to capture it on video but all I saw was the normal air traffic. This object almost has to be outside our atmosphere or it "would" leave one heck of a sonic boom. This has been near commercial air traffic lanes and near the local airport all three times I've seen it but it has no anti-collision lights. No red no green no strobes, if it were anywhere close in altitude it would have these lights. It kind of freaks me out when I think how big ISS is; this appears every bit as big or bigger...so if it "is" reflective light?!?!?! My wife and I spent a good amount of time talking it over the first night we encountered it and we're still puzzled. She is much more analytic than I am and we've had more than our share of disagreements (after having been married for almost 40 years) but this is something were both completely together on. We will probably never know what it is that we've witnessed but it's caused us to be even more appreciative of our awesome night sky.

[Ruud]

Hi, I wonder if the observation is incompatible with a quad copter or a Chinese lantern.

[Paul M]

I don't think there is any need to use a telescope to capture images or video. 

It would be very useful to see some straight forward, wide angle, real time video that simply shows the object traversing the sky.

That will help everyone decide on the nature of the object.

My best guess would still be aircraft landing lights, although you would normally only see those while an aircraft approaches. I get them a lot round here. Aircraft arriving into crowded UK airspace from their Atlantic crossings or while transiting the airspace around Manchester Airport occasionally switch on their landing lights while still at altitude as an extra aid to being seen and being safe. The lights can be bright enough to overpower any coloured navigation lights and even anti-collision strobes. But they usually disappear as the aircraft passes overhead or abeam.

The fact that you see the object quite frequently would imply that it's maybe not as exotic as it might seem. 

Is the path a geodesic? Is there some directional change? Does it always rise and set in the same part of the sky? Video would help answer those questions.

A "fresh pair of eyes" as we call it round here  

[wxsatuser]

I don't know what to think of this anymore, I was out tonight ready to capture it on video but all I saw was the normal air traffic. This object almost has to be outside our atmosphere or it "would" leave one heck of a sonic boom. This has been near commercial air traffic lanes and near the local airport all three times I've seen it but it has no anti-collision lights. No red no green no strobes, if it were anywhere close in altitude it would have these lights. It kind of freaks me out when I think how big ISS is; this appears every bit as big or bigger...so if it "is" reflective light?!?!?! My wife and I spent a good amount of time talking it over the first night we encountered it and we're still puzzled. She is much more analytic than I am and we've had more than our share of disagreements (after having been married for almost 40 years) but this is something were both completely together on. We will probably never know what it is that we've witnessed but it's caused us to be even more appreciative of our awesome night sky.

All you can say is it's a UFO until you can identify it, UFO does not mean it's alien in anyway.

It is possible it could still be a very high speed aircraft at a very high altitude as these conditions may not

create a boom or you may not be in the footprint of it.

I would go for very high aircraft being lit by sunlight, you may not see the strobes from the reflective glare.