IFL spotted!

[Astronomist]

Identified Flying Lantern if you were wondering...

Last night I was shocked to see a Bright reddish orange light moving across the sky at improbable speed. At first I thought it was a Jet on afterburner or a model rocket, however after training the scope on it I realised it was a chinese lantern. I estimate the lanterns apparent size at around 0.3° which based on a true size of 70cm (apparently that's how big a chinese lantern is )  gives an altitude of ~440 feet. It appeared to move at around 5x the speed of the ISS (which moves at ~1.6°/sec) so 8°/sec at 134m. All of this works out to a very approximate speed of 40mph. 

What if it landed on a thatched cottage? 🔥

I really need to get out more , working out the speed of flying lanterns isn't a sane way to spend a monday evening.😆

[Naughty Neal]

Locally a couple of years ago we had over a hundred in the air over 30- 60 minute time period , all within the CTZ of LGW.

There were a lot of local complaints about them as we were coming out of a tinder dry spell.

Edited January 11 by Naughty Neal

[maw lod qan]

But, can you be certain that it's not really small aliens using a cloaking device that makes their tiny ship look like a Chinese Lantern?🤔

[Carbon Brush]

I had to chuckle about comparing lantern angular speed against the ISS.

It brought back memories from a few years ago when the lanterns were popular in this part of the country - at the same time as villains a few miles away were doing things to frequently attract a police helicopter.
To the unaided eye it was not easy to distinguish between a lantern and the spotlight on a helicopter. Both had a similar colour and moved in nearly straight  lines - at least for a while.
The giveaway items were large direction changes, sight of other lights using binos, or the thud thud of a big engine and rotor blades if the wind was favourable.