What did I see on the sky yesterday????

I was sure that it was this cosmic - 1. I live in Poland. This object was the most visible "star" on the sky. It was visible on the western part of the sky. I even took some photos. I was sure that I observed this "space sail" - but today everybody are saying that this mission faild and this sonde even didn't reach the orbit. So what did I see yesterday. Did you see anything unusual?? Or mayby it was this cosmic - 1 indeed???

????

The space sail was scheduled to open 4 days after launch.
That is, if successful!

If it"s there again, in roughly the same place, I would guess
Venus, the "Evening Star".

It's too bad but the solar sail failed to reach it's intended orbit and fell back to earth. The rocket failed two minutes after launch.

If you can provide more details about the time and location of what you saw and any movement (direction, speed etc....) and the length of your observation.
I'm sure some of the folks around here could do a little looking around and at least narrow down what you saw. At the very least we should be able to rule some things out.

There is a website that tracks the ISS. You might want to check that first to see if it crossed your patch of sky at the time. I don't have a link handy but google will find it.

Yea but ISS is in low orbit and "Moves" thru the sky.

Size, shape, aparent magnitude, and if it moved are helpful things.

Just a guess.. It might have been a planet, Jupiter is very prominent in the night sky this time of year.. (sorry for the short post)

If it stayed in same place compared to stars it's very propably either Jupiter or Venus.
Polar orbit (low orbit) satellites move very fast through sky, Iridiums are good example.
And geostationary/geosynchronous satellites are so much farther that those aren't even visible easily.

Most likely a planet. You say you took some photos, could you post them here?

Ive been to Poland on many occasions because my mothers parents and brother lives there and let me tell you its amazing to see all the stars at once not like in the US.. In Poland there are tons of stars that are visable because they are all really close together and here in the US they are very spread apart. I am going to Poland in a few weeks ill look from time to time and see if i can see what gattaca is talking about but i doubt ill see anything but ill look

Shadowman what your describing in the US is what we call "City Glow" it is all the street, window. car lights "blinding" you from seeing the lower magnitude stars.

You really need to get about 100 miles away to truely see the night sky as it was ment to be... or you can get filters to block out city glow

Originally posted by Jehosephat
Shadowman what your describing in the US is what we call "City Glow" it is all the street, window. car lights "blinding" you from seeing the lower magnitude stars.

Very true thats one of the disadvantages of living in the city you cant get a good view and like you said have to move so you get a better scene but ohh well thats how it goes i guess Like i said when i go to Poland in a few weeks im gonna be there for a month or two so ill check around from time to time if im not to tired from working all day on the fields.