Help identify night sky light?

[niceblokejohn]

Hi everyone I saw something odd in the night sky last night (seemed to be flashing red every now and again), so grabbed my spotting scope and camcorder and zoomed in. I'm a complete beginner to astronomy, but was hoping experts on here could please help me identify what I saw?

It was brighter than most stars in the sky, on a clear night in Wiltshire. I got just over 20 minutes of footage of it. It seems circular in shape, with additional circles within it (like a large light circle, then a darker circle, then a small light circle). Excuse the quality of the pictures, and the Death Star in the screen grabs, which was one suggestion on a non-astronomy forum so I added it for fun... !

Anyway, here are the screengrabs and vids, first two were using the "slow shutter" video mode, so more light but 1-2 fps:

http://www.maddogs.co.uk/forum/dvdf_lights.avi

Anyone got any ideas?

[Ant]

Watching the video, it's an out of focus star, maybe an out of focus planet.

Welcome BTW.

Ant

[Tim]

Hello.

I think it probably IS a Death Star, it's been a while since we blew the last one up.

http://www.tv.com/uservideos/?action=video_player&id=IHQwwWPw5b4Ivjbb&om_act=convert&om_clk=viduservids

Luckily, one of the guys on here got a piccy of it blowing up;

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,30280.0.html

If perchance it turns out NOT to be a death star, then perhaps you could tell us WHERE in the sky it was (compass directions are good, or where was it compared to the moon), at what TIME, what SIZE it was (compared say, to the moon), how long it was there, whether it moved etc etc. Details details details.

But have no fear, the only unusual thing we ever see at night is a clear sky

TJ

[George]

I'm guessing Jupiter if it was in the south, other than that death star gets my vote too

[barkis]

My money's on Jupiter. I don't think you would get a proper focus unless the camcorder was properly attached to the scope.

Ron.

[Sam]

Yeah - my money's on an out of focus Jupiter ......... or a Death Star

[niceblokejohn]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It was (if my cheap compass is working...) to the NE, it was the same size as a star to the naked eye, quite low on the horizon (above rooftops, but planes were moving around much higher), at about 10pm last night.

It moved steadily and quite slowly - the movement seen in the videos is from the object/Earth's rotation, camcorder and scope were on a good tripod. It seemed to get fainter after about 30 minutes, and I had trouble getting it in the viewfinder after that. It continued to move left to right across the sky. It was (a fair bit) to the left of the moon.

[Tim]

Ok, in that case, my guess would be Capella, which is a bright star in the NE at the moment, low down on the horizon. It is a very "twinkly" star at the moment, and that fact is emphasized by the atmosphere, and the amount of it you are looking through at the moment to see it. The atmosphere can act a little like a lens and magnify things, and the high wispy clouds we had countrywide last night (even though it looked clear) would serve to make it appear like it was slowly flashing. The dark part in the middle of the object is just a factor of the scope and video combination I think, try it again on another star and see.

At least, that is my humble opinion, i'm sure there will be many others. Besides, there's NO WAY I'm going to own up to it being a Death Star until I am sure the deflector shields are operational.

TJ

[beamish]

I'm guessing it's another of these Sky lanterns -seen from a distance and out of focus on the camcorder

Karlo