Saw something I can't explain

[Djjilis]

Hello fellow stargazers,

I was just walking on the beach of one of Netherland's islands when I spotted Jupiter and Saturn on the nights sky. 30 minutes after having spotted them I looked away in an almost 90 degrees angel to my girlfriend when I saw something bright in the corner of my eye. A bright dot, brighter than Jupiter sat stationary about 1/3 the distance between Jup and Sat at 10 o clock from Saturn.

I told the misses to look at it and when she saw it, it had dimmed to the brightness of Saturn and within 2 or 3 second the dimmed down to the point we couldn't see it, we kept looking for at least an half an hour and it didn't reappear! 

So to summarize:

- Bright dot, brighter than Jupiter suddenly appears where there was nothing before.

- dimms within 5 seconds to nothing 

- when it appeared it was so bright it caught my attention when it was almost outside my peripheral vision.

 

Did we just see a small supernova or something???

Kind regard,

Jilis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Djjilis

[Robindonne]

Hm strange.  Im also behind an eyepiece (not continuous) for the last hour, also from the Netherlands(ben dus ook aan het kijken vanuit Nederland😄).  But didnt notice any strange light.  Have no idea what you just saw

[Djjilis]

Well, it was pretty bizarre. Because it was so close to Saturn, at which we'd been looking a long time already and during the event it didn't move one bit in any direction...

I googled it and anything that comes up, Iridium Flares, shooting stars, meteors, etc. All require for it to have been moving, but it hadn't been moving. 

Could it have been an asteroid entering the atmosphere directly at us instead of accross the sky? The odds of that happening are starteling small. (Echt heel erg raar)

Edited August 7, 2020 by Djjilis

[maw lod qan]

I have seen "heads on" meteors, and imaged a few, but never as bright as what you described. 

Hope you find out what it was.

[vlaiv]

Iridium flare can be very slowly moving if it is moving towards you and it can appear almost stationary.

From your description, it could probably be iridium flare. Once I looked at one for about 20 seconds or so and got really scared because it was looking as a meteor that was about to hit us - getting brighter and brighter - but obviously coming at us because it stayed at pretty much the same place   - then it died out slowly.

However, as I've just found out - Iridium flares are no more - last satellite deorbited in December last year.

Might be some other satellite - check this website: https://www.heavens-above.com/?lat=53.2972&lng=5.0262&loc=Unnamed&alt=0&tz=CET

 

[wxsatuser]

Aircraft with landing lights on coming towards you, appears to be stationary then makes a turn and disappears.

It used to happen a lot here when planes stacked for Gatwick came from the east towards us.
You will not hear any noise as the planes could be many miles away.

[Waddensky]

Thanks for your detailed description, this is very helpful! Supernovae are events that take weeks or months to appear and disappear, so that is not an option. A few other suggestions:

• Aircraft landing lights are very common in The Netherlands, I grew up in the Schiphol region were they appear all the time - very bright when they are pointed directly at you, and then slowly fading as the aircraft changes direction.
• Satellite flares are also quite common. The old Iridiums were well-known for their flares but they are no longer in orbit. Other satellites are also known to flare from time to time when their solar panels beam reflected sunlight in your direction.
• Head-on meteors are very rare, but not impossible. There are currently a few showers active with their radiant roughly in that direction, the closest being the alpha-capricornids shower.
• There are some cosmic events that are very short-lived and may become visible to the naked eye sometime. But these are extremely rare, monitored 24/7 by all-sky surveys and would undoubtly already caused a stir in the astronomical community if one as bright as you described appeared.