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Thu 15 Mar, 2007 12:34 pm
I thought I would take advantage of the fact that it is the new moon here in Cape Town, and stepped outside to do some star-gazing. As I was looking at Sirius, the brightest star in the southern hemisphere sky, I saw something that appeared to be a slightly reddish star, of the second or third magnitude in brightness, moving quite rapidly past it. It was too quick to be a planet. This was some time between 20:10 and 20:20 local time. I ran inside to get a camera, ran out, realised I had forgot batteries, ran in to get them, ran out, and the object was gone from the night sky.
If someone knows what this could have been, comet or whatever, or knows a site where I could find out, please let me know. I find this very intriguing
On a nice clear dark night, satellites are easily visible...they move along pretty fast thru the sky.
It sounds like a satelite.
Shooting stars would be MUCH faster than that, and comets and planets would be MUCH slower.
Thank you guys. Some questions; how could i see a sattelite in the city (light pollution), and I only saw one, and i was scanning the sky for other similar objects? Could it have been some sort of aircraft, life a fighter plane or something? How is it even possible to see sattelites from earth?
Quincy wrote:Thank you guys. Some questions; how could i see a sattelite in the city (light pollution), and I only saw one, and i was scanning the sky for other similar objects? Could it have been some sort of aircraft, life a fighter plane or something? How is it even possible to see sattelites from earth?
The easiest way to see satelites is just to wait for a clear night and then stare into the night sky and hold your eyes still. Anything which moves is either an airplane (or other aircraft), or a satelite of some kind. The clearer and darker the night, the easier it is to see them.
If you really get determined to see them, you can get satelite tracking from the internet and get approximate locations and times when they will be passing overhead.
Satelites are also more visible when sunlight is able to reflect off them, so the shadow of the earth needs to not be blocking the zenith of the sky.
this may help....
http://heavens-above.com/
If you're interested in satellites or astronomy, you've come to the right place! Our aim is to provide you with all the information you need to observe satellites such as the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle, spectacular events such as the dazzlingly bright flares from Iridium satellites as well as a wealth of other spaceflight and astronomical information.
We not only provide the times of visibility, but also detailed star charts showing the satellite's track through the heavens. All our pages, including the graphics, are generated in real-time and customized for your location and time zone.
Thanks for the link Pauligirl. I enterd my co-ordinates (cape town) and specified the dates, and got this page
http://heavens-above.com/ProcessSelectObs.asp?Session=kebgcbnifpjfdoammnlekdca
which shows all the satellites that passed overhead on the 15 and 16 of March, but this page doen't show any satellites at the time i saw this object, which was about 20:15 local time, or 18:15 UTC (whatever that is)
Quincy wrote:Thanks for the link Pauligirl. I enterd my co-ordinates (cape town) and specified the dates, and got this page
http://heavens-above.com/ProcessSelectObs.asp?Session=kebgcbnifpjfdoammnlekdca
which shows all the satellites that passed overhead on the 15 and 16 of March, but this page doen't show any satellites at the time i saw this object, which was about 20:15 local time, or 18:15 UTC (whatever that is)
I think Heavens-Above is dedicated to the Iridium satelites, which produce bright flares periodically due to direct reflection of sunlight.
I think there are other sources for many satelites, but I don't have them off hand. You might have to Google it.
Also, I'm sure there are a few military satelites up there which aren't listed.
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