Flashes in the sky last night (Thur 7 Aug)

[trevboyd]

Was out last night around 2200-2230 looking in the off-chance of catching a couple of meteors. I didn't see any, but my wife spotted one. There was some low cloud in the NE. Occasionally, there would be a flash from that direction the clouds would light up - on average, maybe every two minutes, but not regular. It kind of lookedlike lightning, but there was no sound.

Any ideas what they might have been?

TIA

Trev

[Sam]

Trev,

I would say that is was lightning - probably in either the clouds you could see (depending how big they were) or reflections of lightning in those clouds from further away - either way the distance probably precluded you from hearing the thunder - that's my quess.

Sam

[Jeff RV]

Hi Trev, We get lightning here which is kind of like an electrical storm, when distant we just see the flashes but hear no sound.

Could possibly have been this maybe?

Jeff.

[Jeff RV]

Sorry Sam!! must have clicked just after

Jeff.

[kpax]

No but I saw an absolute beauty on the 31st July at about 11PM. Was polar aligning the scope and was gazing at Polaris with the naked eye when a beauty came from the east entering about 40 degrees east of Polaris, shot across the top of it and disapeared maybe 20 degrees west of Ursa Majors' pointer. Very bright and was moving quite fast.

kpax

[AstroTiger]

i have seen these flashes too. Completetly random

Used to scare the Rubbish out of me, esp wen i was a kid.

They do not occur every night, but when they go they go.

And they only last a fraction of a second, so by the time u recognise it, its gone.

Some satalite debris entering the atmosphere perhaps, or some charge in the sky?

Never sure

[Talitha]

Trev, my horizon is wide open and there have been a lot of times I've seen distant low clouds illuminated by flashes of lightning but never heard a thing.. I wonder how much farther the light can be seen, than the thunder can be heard?

AT, those flashes in the sky have been driving me nutz for a number of years. At first I assumed they were meteors or Iridium flares but I've seen them occur as I was eyeballing the sky and there definitely wasn't any kind of point source. Doesn't matter what season it is, or what the tempersture is, either. Maybe it's something in our eyes that does it.