Im unsure about what i just saw in the sky...

Sounds like the space station .... You can down load the free app ... "Sky view free "... On your phone and track the patch of the space station ....as well as identify all planets ... Stars ... Constellations ....but it sounds like the space station .

a reply to: Meldionne1

Naaahhh...ISS was going over South Africa at the time the OP saw something.

Peace

a reply to: Akragon

Satellite?
I've seen them they appear to be moving very slowly.

a reply to: Akragon

Come on you say you don't know but then when a suggestion is made suddenly you do know?
So how was this different from a satellite because what you described sounds like a satellite to the rest of us.

a reply to: Sillyolme

In his defense, I look up at the sky on a regular basis and have seen my fair share of satellites pass by but with the summer just starting on this latitude I have also had to look twice every now and then because of an airplane or satellite reflecting so bright it kind of made me wonder if it was something else...

(I have absolutely no idea if the season makes any difference in how bright objects above reflect)

Peace

I wondered the same but I past it off as a planet.....
Maybe it wasn't.....

I will just say it... dude you saw a UFO..

a reply to: MorpheusUSA

Well obviously...and we are trying to identify what it was. Care to join in the fun?

When: 03:30 (UTC-4...probably)
Where: 43°06'60.00" N -79°03'60.00" W
Direction: West to east

Peace

a reply to: operation mindcrime


Ok I will look into things too. That negative number gave google earth a hell of a time. I hate DMS everything should be in UTM cords. lol.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

no

I've seen plenty of satellites... even the ISS...


This wasn't even close

Satellites and the ISS can dim over the time of a visible pass (as they move out of a less direct reflective angle between the Sun and you), and can eventually disappear when no longer reflecting sunlight.


EDIT TO ADD:
Or it was a plane at a distance, say 30 or 40 miles from you, that had its approach light/landing light on (which are on a take-off), but had just turned it off.

At 30 miles or so, the landing light would still look relatively bright, but when turned off the plane might have been too far to notice the other dimmer lights -- so it would have looked like it disappeared.

I just had this happen to me. I saw a relatively bright dot near the horizon moving slowly -- then the dot just vanished. I had my mobile phone with Flightradar24 on me, so I held it up to see if it was a plane. Sure enough, the app showed a plane in that general direction 34 miles away that had recently taken off from Newark Airport, which is about 100 miles away from me. I'm figuring I saw it at the time that it turned off the headlight/landing light.

a reply to: MorpheusUSA

Lol...yeah the time-stamp is a bit of an issue here but from what I understand Akragon reported his sighting as being at night (03:30) and two hours before sunrise.

Since he is in Niagara falls I just took that and ran with it...(so not too sure about the UTC-4 thing)

Peace

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

no

I've seen plenty of satellites... even the ISS...


This wasn't even close

well your OP describes exactly what a satellite looks like as it approaches the terminator line an when it passes it disappears as its past the line where the suns light is blocked by earth.

a reply to: Akragon

Could have been an aircraft with landing lights on, which then either altered course or turned the lights off.

a reply to: operation mindcrime

In his defense, I look up at the sky on a regular basis and have seen my fair share of satellites pass by but with the summer just starting on this latitude I have also had to look twice every now and then because of an airplane or satellite reflecting so bright it kind of made me wonder if it was something else...

I believe cold nights will give you clearer viewing of the night sky than a hot night.


There was one occasion when I was spotted the ISS passing over that for about 3 seconds it flared up so bright that it was about 3 to 4 times brighter than Venus is on its brightest nights.

It was visible like it is as it usually passes over, it the brightest moving thing we have up there,

then I would have to assume it rotated and I was in the perfect perspective to see the suns light reflect off a extremely reflective surface or it was the secret government taking pics of me because I am so special



It was just a 3 second flare, before it was a normal ISS viewing and just after...

actually I think it dimmed and then moments later disappeared, I checked heavens above and the ISS it should have been according to them.

So it could have been the same thing as what I said in my other post, just goes past the invisible line of where the suns light passing the earth is blocked by the earth and when a satellite goes through it, it will either shine or disappear.

originally posted by: operation mindcrime
I have also had to look twice every now and then because of an airplane or satellite reflecting so bright it kind of made me wonder if it was something else...

(I have absolutely no idea if the season makes any difference in how bright objects above reflect)

Peace

An visible airplane would not reflect sunlight back to your eyes at night, but a satellite could.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

That makes sense but I was wondering if satellites reflecting light are different in summer/winter..

After all, during the summer, the sun's rays hit the Earth at a steep angle and in winter much shallower.

Maybe it could explain why something that you are used to seeing suddenly appears much different...

(not quite sure if I am explaining myself correctly, it made sense when I said it in my head...lol)

Peace

Apparently its hard to find a good satellite overlay in Google earth anymore.

originally posted by: operation mindcrime
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

That makes sense but I was wondering if satellites reflecting light are different in summer/winter..

After all, during the summer, the sun's rays hit the Earth at a steep angle and in winter much shallower.

Maybe it could explain why something that you are used to seeing suddenly appears much different...

(not quite sure if I am explaining myself correctly, it made sense when I said it in my head...lol)

Peace

Nah...I get it.


I have noticed that there are more high-quality visible passes of the ISS for me (living in the Northeast U.S.) during the winter months as opposed to the summer months. I might be wrong, but I attribute that potentially to the fact that I have more hours of darkness each night in the winter than in the summer.

Another part if it might be that being tilted away from the Sun not only means lengthier nights, but also maybe a greater angle of view towards spots in the sky that are in sunlight while I'm in darkness.

I'm not sure if that second point is really the case, but it might be worth you looking into (if you are looking for an explanation).

a reply to: MorpheusUSA

Yeah...I had difficulty with that as well.

I came up with this...



I could see how GPS32 could be seen as flying west to east. This frame was at about the time the OP is talking about.

Peace

What were you smoking