I live pretty far out in the country and a few planes are expected at night. Here is what happened tonight.

The sky was exceptionally clear, no moon, no clouds. Perfect for astronomy.

I go out and set up and see thousands of stars. Planes flying around are not that uncommon. But I started noticing a little more than usual and that they were circling my area. Some you could hear, they were pretty low and flying sorta slow. The others were higher up and they were moving really fast, but you could not hear any of them. I'm not good with airplanes but the ones that were flying low were not jets like f16s or anything. The higher one could of been anything.

About 20 minutes later I see two bright flashes in the sky that lit up a large portion of the eastern sky and it resembled lightning.

Problem is there were only two flashes (bright like lightning), there were absolutley no clouds in the sky, and no thunder followed. Rest of the night out was normal. Only a couple of planes here and there but not as many as earlier.

What are some of your theories of these bright flashes? The airplanes probably had nothing to do with it and there is also a nuclear power plant in the same area as those flashes.

The thing that really makes me mad was i was trying to spot a galaxy in that area and a bright flash to the eye through a telescope can render you useless for a while....luckily i wasnt looking through the scope at the time, i was just getting done with pointing it in the right direction, a few seconds later and maybe it would have been painful

Hmmm i have noticed more military plane activity in the past 2 weeks here in Tulsa,OK but in the past 2 days there seems to be something going on.........hmmmmmm more fighter jets than usual .......hmmmmm

Could have been intergallactic warships battling in near Earth orbit for control over the human race, using electro magnetic pulses. The first flash could have been the light from the pulse itself, the second being the implosion of one of the starships...

well maybe i should watch the skies more carefully with my telescope... i might see those spaceships shoot at each other

I use a 750x bushnell tele but there is so much light pollution here in town and the weather hasnt been favorable until the past few days it seems.................the one draw back about viewing is that the best time usually is in the cold seasons here

I doubt your telescope can get the 750x.. How big is the lense? mines 6" reflector lense.

There are always planes flying over around here at night. I sometime mistake them for planets because they are very bright and make no noise. They will be flying straight at me or flying away from me but in a straight line so that it appears that they are not moving. Only when I reposition my telescope and focus it on the "star" do i find out that it is an airplane.. Can be aggrevating.

mine is only a peasants scope a 3.5

i do have a barlow lense though

Originally posted by Thatoneguy
I doubt your telescope can get the 750x.. How big is the lense? mines 6" reflector lense.

I think you meant it has a six inch MIRROR, refractor telescopes use lenses.

Hey insite!! More more More!!!!!!

....shooting down that manned Chinese spacecraft,trying to get that war started that they are salivating for the start of.
In the area where I live there is always a lot of military aircraft activity,but there has been no real increase in it that I noticed,they have just started flying in different directions than normal.
Like they are on patrol instead of going to the bombing range to the north.
They used to fly by in a line,several planes following one another,but now they fly in twos,one slightly in front of the other and off to the side.

ah yes i meant 6 inch mirror... i knew that

And with a 3.5 inch telescope then your most useful magnification is about 175x. I hate it the way bushnell sells their telescopes by flashing around their 500+x magnifications for all their small scopes.

Techinically with the focal length of the telescope and the size of the included eyepieces and the barlow you can get 750x but thats too much for a small 3.5 inch lens/mirror

That would be a 6 inch NEWTONIAN REFLECTOR.
Just Kidding..........

most likely what you saw what heat lightning.
not too uncommon.

Heat lightning.... IN OCTOBER???????

hmm.. well i do live in texas