Red Flash in Orion

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: LetsGoViking

Hard to tell if its "perfectly circular" and covered "half a degree" if the duration was only "half a second".

Not really. While it may not have been mathematically perfect, it was circular as opposed to ovoid or some other shape. As to the size, once again a close ball park. It was approximately the size of a full moon (30 arc seconds or .5 degrees) in area, and very brief. I am used to the area of the moon as it traverses the region, so I am comfortable with the size estimate as well as the time.

originally posted by: Trillium
Here possible location just below orion

Location

Thanks for the image...nice work. It was further north and north west. If you drew a line from Alnitak (the first star in the Belt) to Saiph, it was halfway between the two, on the line.

Cheers!

Well, that doesn't exactly sound like seeing a meteor flash out directly towards you ... the length of time, if accurate, would tend to exclude a meteor flash.

I've seen whitish-blue flashes.. .very, very quick ones... and guessed either meteor at the edge of vision or cosmic rays striking my cornea.

This just sounds less explainable...

Maybe it was a launching laser, only they blew the fuse and haven't got it repaired yet.

I saw a recording of something very much like what you describe on another forum a while back, but I can't remember where I saw it. It looked almost like massive fireworks in space. The consensus was that it was most likely something very fast entering the atmosphere at a very steep angle.