Bright light going across sky?

[emilyy01]

Hi,

So I'm fairly new to observing and tonight a big bright light, probably 3 times bigger than the space station, caught my eye. It was travelling from North to South and appeared very bright only for a couple of seconds then went down quickly to a smaller size, like the space station when it is not at its brightest. It got smaller and smaller until I could no longer see it. I just wanted your opinions on what it could have been. A satalite perhaps? I live in North England and I would say it was around 10.15pm...

[Stu]

That was most likely an Iridium flare. These are low earth orbit satellites with large antennae which reflect the sun. When this reflection is in your direction you see a bright flare as it passes, which lasts around 10 seconds or so.

They are very predictable, you can check on www.heavens-above.com to see when they will occur, or there are numerous phone apps too.

[Stu]

Whereabouts are you? I just checked for Newcastle (seems northern, I'm a southern softie  ). There was a bright one at 10.20pm overhead

[Dave In Vermont]

If you have a computer, or similar, and would like to be able to predict when these sorts of satellite-flares can be expected in your location, you can download Previsat off of SourceForge - which also carries many other excellent software-programs. All totally free of charges of any kind.

Here's Previsat:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/previsat/

Just download and read the instructions to enter your location and such.

Enjoy!

Dave

[alan potts]

I have seen them from here a good few times but always lowish and moving South to North, really quite striking.

Alan

[Ouroboros]

8 hours ago, Stu said:

That was most likely an Iridium flare. These are low earth orbit satellites with large antennae which reflect the sun. When this reflection is in your direction you see a bright flare as it passes, which lasts around 10 seconds or so.

They are very predictable, you can check on www.heavens-above.com to see when they will occur, or there are numerous phone apps too.

Thanks for the link to heavens-above.com.  I've been aware that such websites exist but never taken a look before. That one seems particularly easy to use. 

I have seen what I supposed are iridium flares before but only unexpectedly when star gazing. 

[emilyy01]

Brilliant, thanks everyone! Will take a look on that website. Stu, I'm in County Durham so not far South of Newcastle

[Stu]

1 hour ago, emilyy01 said:

Brilliant, thanks everyone! Will take a look on that website. Stu, I'm in County Durham so not far South of Newcastle

Looks like there should be another at around 22.14 tonight, although the exact time and brightness will depend where you are. In Newcastle it is shown as mag -7.6 which is nearly as bright as they ever get. Worth watching for if clear.