Strange flash in sky.

[ribuck]

Hi all,

Last night i was out back in my dome last night at 10:20pm, just by chance i peered out of the slit to see if there were any incoming clouds or not.

I saw a super bright white flash of light right next to Kochab which seemed to last about around 1 second.

it's the brightest thing i've ever seen in the sky, many mnay times brighter than even the brightest star, i did however notice that after the flash what looked like a satellite shooting acoss the sky.

Can sunlight glinting off a satellite really cause such a bright flash ?

[acey]

Might have been an Iridium satellite - they get extremely bright for short moments and are very eye-catching. You can check up on fly-over times here:

Heavens-Above Home Page

[ribuck]

Ahaa apparently it was iridium 50 which ties in with the time exactly. Wohoo my first Satellite flare, and it looked impressive too, especially mangintude -8, no wonder it was so bright.

Thanks for the link Acey.

At your locationAt flare centre Time: 22:26:13 22:26:10 Magnitude: -2 -8 Altitude: 39° 37° Azimuth: 48° (NE ) 48° (NE ) Mirror angle: 1.1° 0.0°

[Shibby]

I saw what I believe was one last Friday/Saturday am in the NW. It actually made me squint it was that bright!

[ribuck]

I might see if i can capture one of these with my spc9000 webcam as they do look quite impressive.

Rich.