Posted on 06/25/2019 7:53:10 PM PDT by BOARn
lights in southern sky
My suspicion, too. That Falcon can carry quite a load. Eventually, the satellites will have to spread out, unless they are controlled to remain together for some military reason.
I am not joking with you. It’s just, as an amateur astronomer, I spend a LOT of time out looking at things. Most of the time everything is as it should be, but, occasionally, they are not. It’s the not normal things that get your attention.
The Falcon Heavy went off Tuesday morning at 2:30am from Florida. Probably not what you saw.
Unless it was going VERY fast (meteor), it was either an aircraft or satellite.
That part of the sky doesn’t have a lot of bright stars in the sky. Spica would be the only star you might have noted.
Jupiter would just be rising in the east. Arcturus would be overhead.
When you go out at night, always take a good pair of 7x50 binoculars with you. 99 times out of 100 you can see what it is from there.
One thing that Satellites do is “flair”. If you get the angle off of a solar panel in the right place, you can get quite a bright reflection off of them.
Could have been ISS with a Russian supply ship trying to catch it. Also fairly common.
That was Venus. You were drunk and staggered to the left and thought the object darted to the right. You also were late to work that morning.
If you can give me an exact time, I may be able to give you a satellite name. I set my Sky Safari program for Dallas
What color were the lights? If they were orange, I think I know what they were.
I believe you.
I was stationed at a NAS in Georgia, 73/74 working in the control tower. It was a clear night, I was by myself, no traffic. It was a VFR tower but we had an ASR scope (air surveillance) to watch any approaching traffic. There was also a ground control approach unit across the street. Like I said, there was no traffic. Suddenly, to the south, I see two lights in the sky kind of hovering. They’re a long way off but were high enough they had to be air traffic. I see nothing on ASR so I called GCA...nothing. At that point, they literally streaked across the clear sky and disappeared.
That was also about the time Jimmy Carter and others reported seeing UFOs all across Georgia
So, I’m not laughing at you! I’m a believer.
Google “US Navy” and “tic tac” shaped aerial phenomena.
PROTIP: they’re not ours.
Yes, you may have seen today’s Falcon Heavy launch.
A few days ago here in Tampa I saw small (relative to the jet) shiny object darting around a passenger jet in flight. The jet left a contrail, however the small object did not. It was really quite strange.
It could be the results of the Beta Taurids is a meteor shower which is going on at this time.
I am messing up big time tonight. Correction:
It could be the results of the Beta Taurids meteor shower which is going on at this time.
ISS moves west to east across the sky, his report says the objects were moving south. For the same reason this would rule out bright planets. Sounds too slow to be meteors.
Not sure what to suggest. Any chance it had something to do with hot air balloons moving away to the south?
Though only low orbit satellites you should be able to see.
Could be related to this: https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-night-sky-visibility-guide.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.