Weird Sattelite

yaboy · 13 Feb 2008 at 00:53

JBuk said:
better put some tinfoil on yer head

ROSWELL!!!1

Hyper · 13 Feb 2008 at 00:53

Pheeew, was getting too many X-Files thoughts before seeing that image

Substance · 13 Feb 2008 at 00:59

If i look south-east tonight i see something that looks bright blue that seems to be flickering blue-red-black(invisible) very quickly

nikebee · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:01

SuBsTaNcE said:
If i look south-east tonight i see something that looks bright blue that seems to be flickering blue-red-black(invisible) very quickly

nikebee said:

If it's similar to that, as I just said it's Mercury

Substance · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:31

nikebee said:
If it's similar to that, as I just said it's Mercury

That gif just looks red/white, what i am seeing definitely looks bright blue, blue being by far the most noticeable colour

Fuzz · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:36

nikebee said:
If it's similar to that, as I just said it's Mercury

Not at this time of night it aint!

nikebee · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:40

nokinidea said:
Not at this time of night it aint!

Care to explain why not?

Fuzz · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:40

Mercury never appears very far from the Sun (between 17 and 28 degrees away, the variation being due to its highly eccentric orbit). Consequently it can only be seen with the naked eye when it is low down in twilight (shortly after sunset or before sunrise) and it is never seen in fully dark skies. Mercury typically makes three morning appearances and three evening appearances each year, though for any given location on Earth, Mercury will only be well placed for viewing on about half of these occasions because of the length of local twilight and the angle of the ecliptic to the local horizon.

nikebee · 13 Feb 2008 at 01:44

nokinidea said:
Mercury never appears very far from the Sun (between 17 and 28 degrees away, the variation being due to its highly eccentric orbit). Consequently it can only be seen with the naked eye when it is low down in twilight (shortly after sunset or before sunrise) and it is never seen in fully dark skies. Mercury typically makes three morning appearances and three evening appearances each year, though for any given location on Earth, Mercury will only be well placed for viewing on about half of these occasions because of the length of local twilight and the angle of the ecliptic to the local horizon.

Yes just read that from my own link as well actually.

Hmmm....

JIM_BOB7813 · 13 Feb 2008 at 09:44

It's Sirius as someone has already said

To the naked eye, it often appears to be flashing with red, white and blue hues when near the horizon

I went out to see it last night, it was at the bottom left of Orion, if you follow a line from his belt.

nikebee · 13 Feb 2008 at 13:24

JIM_BOB7813 said:
It's Sirius as someone has already said

I went out to see it last night, it was at the bottom left of Orion, if you follow a line from his belt.

Just looked at some pics of that on Google Images, it certainly looks similar to what I saw last night, but not identical.

The closest picture I've seen is the Mercury one I posted (although it obviously can't be Mercury)/

J1234 · 13 Feb 2008 at 23:19

Can't see it tonight.

Substance · 13 Feb 2008 at 23:24

Justin said:
Can't see it tonight.

Nope completely gone :/

J1234 · 13 Feb 2008 at 23:29

I think it's cloudy, can't see any other stars.

Darg · 14 Feb 2008 at 01:48

It's probably sirius, I saw it a couple of years ago and didn't know what it was. Looked it up and it was sirius, the colours are just because its low enough to the horizon to be distorted and the colours flicker.

Grandmaster Fap! · 14 Feb 2008 at 06:54

Watched it go over a couple of times early tonight, amazed how bright it was at one point.