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Super bright light overhead in the night sky

 
Steward and Man of Many Mushrooms
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Early this morning I was walking the dog well before sunup and in the East Southeast sky at about 45 degrees elevation I noticed a very bright, amber object (like a star/planet) moving quickly in the sky towards the West Northwest.  The object looked like Jupiter (which was nearby when I saw the star/planet, but was easily 2-4 times as bright.  I watched it cross the sky.  It was bright enough to shine through a thin stratus layer and it dimmed and eventually disappeared as it got into it Far East Northeastern sky.  The whole passage probably only took about a minute or so.

So what in the world did I see?  It was definitely brighter than Jupiter.  It did not flash red and green like the wingtips of a plane would.  It moved far too fast for a plane.  I have seen satellites through a telescope before but they are tiny specs, but it did move at about that speed (maybe even faster, lower orbit?).  I have seen the ISS, but it was not so bright.

Any ideas?
 
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Hi Eric;
Well, I let the shop dragon loose for a flight about that time... she has always wanted to see Florida.
Could have been her heading back home!
 
Eric Hanson
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Thomas,

Well I like the idea of a shop dragon, but no wings, claws, etc. etc.

Also no fire—just a single small but bright amber dot of light moving rapidly.

Oh yeah, and given its East Northeast direction, maybe it would end up in New York, but definitely not Florida.

Did your dragon want to see the Statue of Liberty?
 
thomas rubino
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Eric;
Did I mention this is a Girl Dragon?
Your guess is as good as mine about what she might be thinking!
 
Eric Hanson
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A girl dragon?  No, you didn’t mention that.  Does it change anything?
 
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You saw nothing.
 
Eric Hanson
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In seriousness, I would have said it was a satellite, but it was by far the brightest object in the sky excluding the moon.  If it was a satellite, it must have been huge and low orbiting.
 
pollinator
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If was as bright/brigher than Jupiter and smoking along at crazy speed, it was probably the International Space Station.

I have only seen it once, but damn it is impressive.
 
out to pasture
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Oooops. Sorry about that.

I went off on a dragon-journey around that time. Couldn't sleep.

It helps... Try it!

 
Eric Hanson
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Douglas,

It might have been the ISS, but I have seen the ISS with a shuttle docked before and this was actually brighter.  And it was moving quite a bit faster, suggesting a lower orbit.  I am not ruling out the ISS, but the brightness and speed were really something else.

Eric
 
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Just one of those things I reckon. When I was a kid, almost 60 years ago I saw a bright blue spot in the air one night just before dark. When it got closer it was more than one blue spot, they seemed pretty big actually. I remember wondering if it was one thing with blue spots or individual blue spots. They were lower than the tops of the trees behind the house and dropped down even lower across the pasture then over and down out of sight to the other side of the barn. The barn roof was aluminum and was very pretty with the reflection.  I think I was kind of scared when it first appeared, but I just watched it until it disappeared; I had never heard of a UFO or anything like that. It was probably forty years later before I told anyone about it. It definitely was not the ISS.
 
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The other day I got a clickbait article in my feed that right now a lot of UFOs are being sighted over Kiev. I did not click on that article as my time is precious.

Last year, the first (and only?) time I saw Elon Musks starlink I was a bit scared as I was not prepared for it. I had no idea it would cross our sky (and no idea how it would look like, had only remotely heard of it).

Very curious to hear if you find out what it was!
 
pollinator
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Definitely the ISS.

How bright it appears in the sky varies, depending on relative position of the ISS, viewer, and the sun. Different surfaces are more or less reflective, the brightness of the sky varies, partial cloud cover etc...

Nasa has a tool for working out when the ISS will be overhead in your area. You tend to get a week or so of regular passes, then a big gap. Something complicated due to orbits.

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/
 
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Did the light you saw look like this?


source

I don't know though maybe Douglas is right?  International Space Station.

Or maybe Jordan's advice is the way to go?
 
Eric Hanson
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Let me say for the record that while this is an object that is as of yet unidentified, I don’t believe this is anything alien or secret military.  If it were military, then my area was the wrong place to try to keep it secret.  This is certainly not the desert Southwest.  Overall our population is far too dense to keep something like this much of a secret.

With that out of the way I am confident that it was a real object of some type.

Given its brightness, I briefly thought it might be a fireball—a meteor that makes its way to the lower atmosphere, slows down and gets very, very hot and bright and makes a pretty spectacular display in the night sky.  One morning I saw two fireballs!!  What a show!

But fireballs are still too fast for what I saw, are dimmer than what I saw (maybe 1/2 the brightness of Jupiter as of right now—Jupiter is near opposition, the brightest it will appear in the sky), and last far too short.  The fireballs I saw were 1-3 second events.  What I saw yesterday was closer to a minute and crossed easily 1/2 the sky.

So the mystery remains.  My bet is on some man made object.  It was not Starlink as those are clusters of small satellites that increase in orbit, eventually becoming invisible.

On a tangential note, I am an amateur astronomer and dark skies matter to me.  I really don’t want the sky polluted with all sorts of artificial, visible satellites.  Does anyone else have similar feelings?

Eric
 
Michael Cox
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The NASA ISS app shows this for a location in Illinois. You'd need to put in a specific location near you to check if it was actually the ISS you saw.

ISS.JPG
ISS Location chart
ISS Location chart
 
steward and tree herder
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Sometimes in the evening I see aeroplanes reflecting the sun after it is set (not usually up early enough for sunrise!) Could it have been a plane perhaps?
 
Mark Reed
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Eric Hanson wrote:
On a tangential note, I am an amateur astronomer and dark skies matter to me.  I really don’t want the sky polluted with all sorts of artificial, visible satellites.  Does anyone else have similar feelings?
Eric



Yes, and I feel the same way about excessive light reflected back from the ground.
 
Anne Miller
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Several years ago, every night I would see something that looked a lot like a star but moved oddly.  If it had not been at night I would have said it was a drone from the way it moved.

Then the next year, I notice that a star that I had been watching for years had moved from south to southwest.

Then I noticed a lot of changes.  I don't know if it was these changes or something else that caused me to quit watching them.
 
Eric Hanson
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Nancy,

If it were a plane, it did not have on its collision avoidance lights--the red and green lights on the wing tips.  And it was VERY high and Very fast for a plane.  It was well above a cloud layer and covered the entire sky in about an minute or so (I wish I could have timed it so my timing could be a little off, but it was visibly moving quite fast).  So for something that high and that fast it was either something hypersonic, which is not impossible but the skies of Southern Illinois are a strange place for such a plane, or it was in space, which is my current leading thought.

Eric
 
Eric Hanson
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I may have found the culprit.  Not a dragon, but a falcon--a Falcon 9 that is, from Spacex.  Specifically it was the huge satellite it launched called Bluewalker3 that has one of the largest antennas ever put into space--64 square meters, or over 600 square feet.

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/09/11/the-controversial-bluewalker-3-satellite/

And yes, many astronomers are concerned.

Eric
 
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Eric Hanson wrote:And yes, many astronomers are concerned.

I bet they are. One of the things I love about where I live is that when we first came, we had fairly dark skies - few street lights, and few people left lights on if they weren't needed. There is an old telescope south of me by a fair ways, but they encouraged dark skies.

However, in the last 10 years, that attitude is shifting - many new people moving in, lots of new buildings being built, lots of big money that want their house to stand out (read all sorts of "accent" lighting), and people who have built greenhouses which are left lit all night with no concern for the escaping light.

I understand that some lighting is needed for safety, but we know lots about how to make it only as bright as needed, and direct it *where* it is needed, and one path they lit all the lights are motion sensed so they're only on when needed.

Not to mention, space junk is a serious problem that's getting worse. We need a space garbage collection system fast!
 
Eric Hanson
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I couldn't agree more Jay.  Light pollution is one of my personal issues I take to heart.  I like a dark environment so I can see stars.  I do have a fairly dark sky to my southeast which is nice.  Directly overhead is pretty dark as well.

My old neighbor to my immediate south recently died.  He was a very kindly old man and I will truly miss him.  Unfortunately, even though he only lived in a very modest house, he did have a farm light on a telephone pole mounted outside (is farm light the right word?).  This was an only moderate nuisance as it was a fairly red, orangish light that did not really brighten the area too bad.  His kids, however, have replaced that old (sodium vapor?) light with an LED light that is vastly brighter and in a bright white spectrum.  It really casts a shadow quite a long distance.

I like to walk in the mornings well before sunrise (3:00 is common for me) and I absolutely hate walking towards that light as it is blinding to walk into.  Even walking away it is unnatural to see so much detail so clearly.  I personally much prefer to let my eyes dark-adjust so that I can see in the dark naturally, but this takes some time and many are not patient to wait for our eyes to do that adjustment.  I have no problems walking in the dark so long as my eyes are dark-adjusted.  But moving from well-lit to darkness means that I plod along barely knowing where my footsteps land.

GRRRRR!

Eric
 
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Eric Hanson wrote:Light pollution is one of my personal issues I take to heart.  I like a dark environment so I can see stars.  I do have a fairly dark sky to my southeast which is nice.  Directly overhead is pretty dark as well... GRRRRR!



One of our favorite things about our place has always been the darkness, at night. I love being someplace where we still get lightening bugs, and can see all the stars. We now have an international raceway just about 3 miles away, and a matching campground about the same distance, the opposite direction, both with so many insanely bright lights, the sky is already starting to lighten up, a bit. Even before that, I threatened to shoot out the big street light the previous owners put up, by our big garage. Anyway, John thought I was imagining things, when I (very angrily) grumbled about all the satellite activity, until I made him come out with me, one night, and pointed out all the satellites. At first, he said, "That's not a satellite. Stars can flicker, too." So, I told him to pick one of those I'd pointed out, and just watch it for a minute. It didn't take long for him to see what I was talking about - I think it's probably the Starlink, but... it pisses me off, and leaves me feeling a tiny bit...  paranoid.
 
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Could be BlueWalker 3!

https://www.fastcompany.com/90788082/a-new-internet-satellite-brighter-than-any-star-will-ruin-the-sky
 
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Anita Martin wrote:The other day I got a clickbait article in my feed that right now a lot of UFOs are being sighted over Kiev. I did not click on that article as my time is precious.

Last year, the first (and only?) time I saw Elon Musks starlink I was a bit scared as I was not prepared for it. I had no idea it would cross our sky (and no idea how it would look like, had only remotely heard of it).

Very curious to hear if you find out what it was!



When we saw the star link release, we half-believed it was a nuclear strike.
 
Myron Platte
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You might have seen an iridium satellite. They can be extremely bright. That’s what they’re designed for.
 
Carla Burke
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Just a day or two after my last comment in this thread, I was outside at about 11pm, and noticed what appeared to be an extremely bright flashlight beam - up with the stars - and its been there every night, since. .I can't help wondering if this thing is what I'm seeing.
 
Eric Hanson
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Maybe so Carla,

What I saw looked a lot like Jupiter but much, much brighter.  It started is roughly the same area as Jupiter so I could easily compare it to Jupiter’s brightness which looked dim by comparison.  And it moved quickly in the wrong direction to be Jupiter.  It moved far too fast to be a plane and far too slow to be a meteor.

Maybe we saw the same thing.
 
Carla Burke
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Eric Hanson wrote:Maybe so Carla,

What I saw looked a lot like Jupiter but much, much brighter.  It started is roughly the same area as Jupiter so I could easily compare it to Jupiter’s brightness which looked dim by comparison.  And it moved quickly in the wrong direction to be Jupiter.  It moved far too fast to be a plane and far too slow to be a meteor.

Maybe we saw the same thing.



My bright thing is not moving fast, but seems to be orbiting. I was thinking what I'm seeing might be the Blue Walker?
 
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