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can someone explain this please?


Astronomist

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Hi everyone

I have just witnessed a rather odd spectacle, at 18:15 today I started setting up my scope, and in the southern sky around 6-8 degrees south west of Alhena I saw two point objects (they looked exactly like bright stars), around 2 degrees apart but completely stationary, white in colour. after approximately a minute they slowly faded away.  Based on the surrounding stars I estimate their magnitude around 0.2 give or take.              BTW I absolutely do NOT believe in flying saucers!  

thanks in advance,

Astronomist

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It was on the south west edge of Salisbury and yes I often see Merlin or apache helicopters at night, but there was no sound, and a helicopter generally has many bright flashing lights. I'm not familiar with parachute flares, but I've just watched a few YouTube videos and this does look like what I saw, however I have never seen military activity (other than aircraft) that far from Salisbury plain, and in order to appear magnitude 0.2 they would, I assume, have to be very high up.

thanks,

Astronomist

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30 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

Parailum flares aren’t stationary- they decrease in altitude  visibly.

 

Flares.jpg.86a5616f7057b8c2e0214e63ea6c1ffd.jpg

Parailum flares ?

I don't think so...... 😆

Parachute flares are designed to stay at altitude for as long as possible, but obviously they do descend.

It was just a suggestion.

Michael

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Thanks for all your replies, I'm not sure if stellarium includes geostationary satellites , but I cannot find what I saw at that time, the only thing that was close was a pair of NOS satellites (passing very slowly in a high orbit), about 2 minutes before my sighting. stellarium has their magnitude at a fairly dim 4.5.  I am thinking they where some kind of very high altitude flare, as suggested by @michael8554

Edited by Astronomist
terible spellin
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5 hours ago, Astronomist said:

It was on the south west edge of Salisbury and yes I often see Merlin or apache helicopters at night, but there was no sound, and a helicopter generally has many bright flashing lights. I'm not familiar with parachute flares, but I've just watched a few YouTube videos and this does look like what I saw, however I have never seen military activity (other than aircraft) that far from Salisbury plain, and in order to appear magnitude 0.2 they would, I assume, have to be very high up.

thanks,


 

OOPS! the descending flares has already been addressed. MAJOR EDIT!

Edited by bosun21
Typo
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Ok, I have looked at heavens above, I cannot find anything bright passing in that direction at around that time. I was wondering, is it possible for a satellite to appear far brighter than predicted, the aforementioned NOS satellites move slowly enough that I might have mistaken them for being stationary, but were forecast to appear quite dim. other than that I think I will have to settle for them being flares.

thanks 

Astronomist

 

Edited by Astronomist
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