Can't explain this.

[moonomaly]

So sunset in the UK last night was 21:15.

I went to my loft room at about 11pm and was pulling down the blind when i saw a large, sunset-coloured light in the clouds (it was quite thick cloud cover and this looked like the Moon reflecting sunlight and showing through a gap in the clouds).

But then the light started moving down, split into two and then disappeared. It all happened in less than a minute.

I checked with my astronomy app and the Moon was far away from the position of the light so it wasn't the Moon.

The light was about 25 degrees above the Horizon toward the East, can the Sun cast red light on clouds 2 hours after official setting time?

[Ben the Ignorant]

Can you draw what you saw? Written descriptions are pictured in a different way in each person's mind.

[moonomaly]

2 minutes ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

Can you draw what you saw? Written descriptions are pictured in a different way in each person's mind.

I tried to video it but the Nikon coolpix i bought is still giving me focusing problems.

Image attached, black line is horizon with East marked.

 

[Wiu-Wiu]

Could it have been an airplane with its landing lights on? Or a heli with a search light?

[moonomaly]

There was no noise, and it didn't change position until it split into two, the lower blob then moved down (it looked like it was dripping or melting) and then after i had turned the light on so that i could see the buttons to turn auto-focus off both blobs had gone. I watched for another 5 minutes but nothing.

If it was the Sun reflecting off clouds (can it do that two hours after sunset?) then it may happen again this evening.

[xtreemchaos]

Aliens, honist, devoid of any othier it has to be ?. charl.

[moonomaly]

lol Giant

If it happens again tonight i'll video it on the mobile.

[LukeSkywatcher]

(it looked like it was dripping or melting).

Useful detail. Do you live near an air force base?. Could have been a flare. Also could have been some space junk burning up on re-entry. Another possible thing is a meteorite breaking up on entry into the atmosphere. 

[emadmoussa]

That's a classic description of unidentified aerial phenomenon that could be anything, starting with an airplane all the way to a potential UFO sighting.  

[Ben the Ignorant]

Might be a chinese or thai lantern. They're like mini air ballons with their own little furnace, and their body is only paper. Maybe you saw one whose frame started to burn, then it broke up, that would explain the falling smaller piece, and a bit later the furnace and the paper were completely consumed, explaining why nothing left was seen.

I've seen quite a number of them; when they're too far away for the 8x or 10x binocs they remain suspicious, but another look with the eveready 23x refractor confirmed their mundane nature. A minuscule red-orange mushroom with a tinier yellow flame below. 

[MarsG76]

29 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

(it looked like it was dripping or melting).

Useful detail. Do you live near an air force base?. Could have been a flare. Also could have been some space junk burning up on re-entry. Another possible thing is a meteorite breaking up on entry into the atmosphere. 

Fireball was the first thing I thought of... large space junk could also explain it... especially if taking time to burn up and flying with a low angle with respect to the viewer.

[moonomaly]

Lots of possibilities, thanks. It wasn't windy so it could have been a flare seen through clouds and having no lateral movement (unless it was drifting in my direction).

Yes there are three operating AFBs in a rough triangle west, north and east of me, all about 2 to 300 miles away eyeballing the map. RAF Wittering to the East.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Even though ive seen them hundreds of times, the one thing that still catches me out is a plane with its landing light on. I live not a million miles from Dublin airport and a lot of planes do a final landing turn, over where i live. I see the landing light, head on and its so big and bright and stationary for a few seconds that i always think its a head on meteor(ite). 

*meteor(ite)*

A meteor, is only classed as a meteorite if it makes land fall.

[Stargazer33]

I saw a large orange glowing disk to the south of our garden a few nights ago. I ran inside to get my bins and when I focused on it, I saw that it was a hot air balloon. As I was watching they fired up the burner which gave a smaller bright area below the glowing balloon canopy.

What's strange is that we are only a couple of miles from the Channel and judging by the balloon's size it was well out over the Sea!

[moonomaly]

Checked a few times on Thursday night but not repeated.

[Sunshine]

Cool sighting, once many moons ago, while observing with my family, we all saw something that we followed with binoculars that completely defied any possible law of aerodynamics.

So dumbfounded were we that we all spoke about it for weeks, i drew sketches, but they're lost in time now, some may think its crazy, but, nobody was able to offer an explanation based on its flight characteristics.

[david_taurus83]

Observing from my astro club site a few weeks ago I stayed behind on my own until late as after observing Venus, Jupiter and Saturn at the same time I was keen to see how dark it would be compared to my back garden. No streetlights so pretty dark. I snapped a couple of pictures on my phone and noticed this in on of the pics. Exposure is 1/4 second and you can see in the background I was holding the phone still. The streak of light was not visible to me when I took the picture.

[LukeSkywatcher]

8 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Observing from my astro club site a few weeks ago I stayed behind on my own until late as after observing Venus, Jupiter and Saturn at the same time I was keen to see how dark it would be compared to my back garden. No streetlights so pretty dark. I snapped a couple of pictures on my phone and noticed this in on of the pics. Exposure is 1/4 second and you can see in the background I was holding the phone still. The streak of light was not visible to me when I took the picture.

Interesting photo. Space junk methinks.

[david_taurus83]

1 minute ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

Interesting photo. Space junk methinks.

Change of direction? 15/20° across the sky in 0.25 seconds?

[Ben the Ignorant]

I thought it could be a firefly but it would have to be close to make such a long streak. Then it would be defocused, so it would look blurry and a bit bloated. Plus, fireflies are more yellow-green than white. And the change of brightness is strange unless the critter made a few turns but that would be a lot of aerobatics in only a quarter-second. I don't know.

[Tim]

10 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

Observing from my astro club site a few weeks ago I stayed behind on my own until late as after observing Venus, Jupiter and Saturn at the same time I was keen to see how dark it would be compared to my back garden. No streetlights so pretty dark. I snapped a couple of pictures on my phone and noticed this in on of the pics. Exposure is 1/4 second and you can see in the background I was holding the phone still. The streak of light was not visible to me when I took the picture.

 

Hi David. This is 100% the result of camera movement at the time of exposure. Only the bright object, Jupiter?, shows the trail because only that was  bright enough to activate the cmos sensor in your phone, the trail like that you could do in 1/30 of a second though, despite thinking you held the phone totally still. Also, phones arent like real cameras with a physical shutter, and despite the silly shutter sound they make, you never quite know exactly when the exposure starts and finishes.

Hope that helps.

 

[Tim]

In fact, you can even see that the final tiny movement as displayed by the bright object is also reflected in the stars near the horizon.

As for the OP, sounds like a classic flare to me, dropped by a plane. 

[david_taurus83]

47 minutes ago, Tim said:

Hi David. This is 100% the result of camera movement at the time of exposure. Only the bright object, Jupiter?, shows the trail because only that was  bright enough to activate the cmos sensor in your phone, the trail like that you could do in 1/30 of a second though, despite thinking you held the phone totally still. Also, phones arent like real cameras with a physical shutter, and despite the silly shutter sound they make, you never quite know exactly when the exposure starts and finishes.

Hope that helps.

 

I did think that as it's looking SE at 11pm. What I didn't get was if I took the picture while panning then why doesn't the tree line and football posts blur? The exposure length is recorded by the phone.

[Tim]

6 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

 What I didn't get was if I took the picture while panning then why doesn't the tree line and football posts blur?

 

Just because they are dark areas that need longer to register on the camera. Probably if you had a RAW version of the pic and stretched it you would see some smearing. It is practically impossible to handhold a camera still for anything over 1/30 second, especially if you are using a finger to press the shoot button.

You can actually use the technique in creative ways, but it is easier on a tripod to get reliable results. 

[Red Dwarfer]

I seen something strange last weekend moving faster and lower than the usual satellites - I had a scope on an az4 mount at the time so was was able to track it in a haphazard way - it looked Saturn shaped through the 130P and had the same brightness as well ... Most likely scenario is a defunct satellite ?