Meteors ?

[Sean Burton]

Hi I looked into the night sky yesterday evening and saw a slow moving object it looked at high altitude and had the appearance of a distant star nothing unusual here then the object began to to turn left around 90 degrees then accelerated at high speed in a straight line across the sky I then lost sight of it , I have looked at possible meteor breaking up explanations however this was strange and amazing , Sean Burton 

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi Sean, welcome. Meteors tend to move fast. 

[Sean Burton]

On 19 October 2019 at 10:49, Dave Lloyd said:

Hi Sean, welcome. Meteors tend to move fast. 

Hi Dave thanks for your reply , I agree  , I have seen plenty of what I believe to be meteors it was just that this one changed direction then accelerated , some objects seem to move differently .

[Paul M]

If it changed direction then it must have been in the atmosphere, which kind of limits it to some kind of aircraft. Increasingly often airliners maneuvering in our congested airspace will have their landing lights on. They are bright enough to washout any-other coloured or strobe navigation lights. 

Just the other night I was surprised to see a bright new star between Saturn and Jupiter, low in the south. It was stationary and twinkling like a star. Then as I watched it I could tell it was moving and it too changed direction before accelerating and disappearing.  All classic features of a airliner maneuvering in Manchester Airport's control zone (TMA) maybe 60 miles away.. Even though I've seen it a million times before, this particular apparition had me thinking for more seconds than normal!