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Help needed! What did I see with my own eyes?

Rousso

By Rousso
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Rousso

Rousso

Posted
Posted

Hello to all that read this!

I'll get straight to the point, as an fan of most astronomy programs that I have time to see for the love of me Im a novice. As this is the case I'm not sure what I have just witnessed with my naked eye! I was looking up and the moon as I cant sleep (06:50GMT looked at my watch after I was sure I was not going to miss anything else) and I saw a bright flash just under the moon. I would say that the flash was close to Eta Crateris and Zeta Crateris!

What did I see? Was it a flare from a satellite as the sun is on its way up? Or did I see some kind of star activity? I have watched the programs and have learnt that things that go Bang (sorry for the layman term) are visible to the naked eye.

Details of event:

Bournemouth UK,

Latitude: 50.720405 / Longitude: -1.880916 (within 1000meters of my home),

Time 06:50 GMT,

Date. 10th Dec 2009.

Many regards

Tony.

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alfingido

alfingido

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Posted

Not sure what you saw, but at around 7 this morning I was walking the dog, looking up at the moon and I saw the ISS pass just under the moon.

Could it have been that?

Pass for my location ( Kent) was between 7am and 7:03 am, SSE to E

Allan

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RichardW

RichardW

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I have seen this effect quite frequently and there is a simple explanation. I live under a heavily used air corridor and at this time in the morning as the sun is rising, high flying aircraft which are often not visible, if they are in the right position between the observer and the sun, very briefly reflect light from some part of the fuselage. The result is very brief bright flash.

Richard

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Rousso

Rousso

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Gentleman I'd like to thank you for your insight. All I can say is now on days like this morning I will be looking up a bit more in to the sky. I was watching the BBC's Sky at Night earlier this year and it was said that there is a website that predicts iridium flares. Maybe if I can find that site then it might give me the definitive proof of what I saw. Anyone got any ideas on that?

Tony.

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Tony,

A warm welcome to SGL. if you download the program, heavens above.com and enter your home location it lists the ISS and satellites observable from your address, you may be able to establish whether it was an Iridium Flare, enjoy the forum.

John.

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Talitha

Talitha

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Hi and welcome to SGL, Tony. :)

Could have been a piece of orbital debris (space junk). They tumble and sometimes the sunlight glints off of them. When they lose altitude and enter the Earth's atmosphere, they burn up and can look like an Iridium flare. So if Heavens Above doesn't show an iridium flare at the time of your sighting, my guess is that it was a piece of orbital debris relfecting or entering.

Heavens Above also has schedules for the ISS. It's as bright as Jupiter as it floats across the sky, and is totally visible till it enters the Earth's shadow and slowly fades. :icon_eek:

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Rousso

Rousso

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WOW and Thank you all so kindly for your help. I seem to have worked out that it was an Iridium flare, (ScreenGrab attached) just that the time was out by an hour. (Probably something I have done wrong)

Now armed with what is now my new favourite website I can now go and have a little fun at a few friends expense. I have to now share with others what I have learned from all of you today and by making it funny so that family and friends might actually be interested in things that happen above our heads every day. (OH and get out of doing the washing up weather permitting)

I will fill out my profile cause Im now here to stay on the forum for mostly 2 reasons.

1. How quick and effective your help was and

2. I will have another question or 1000's

Once again many thanks to you all

Allan

John

(Vega)

Dicky

Stef

Richard

John (glowjet)

JohnH

Dana

And Carol.

Regards Tony.

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