What Comet is in Tonight's Night Sky? (solved)

Living 25 miles away from NASA, there was a satellite launch at 5:04 p.m. I didn't get to see it because I totally forgot about it. If the object was heading east, then it is definitely the satellite. If the object was heading west, then I have no idea what it could be. I live in central Florida and was outside at around 6:00 p.m. I didn't see anything during that time.

OK, that mystery is soloved.


Now what about that satalight....

Where is Mr Lear when you need him...

I live in Ft. Myers. I saw it the other night when I was getting off work. It was nera Mars when I saw it in the sky. The only reason I herad about it was actually the local news. Which coincidentally usually sucks here. I think it was on WINK. Good luch in your comet hunt, though it should be outta sight by now.

George Norey had Peter Davenport (Nationas UFO Reporting Center) on last night (Monday). He said that an object had been spotted across a large area of the country earlier this everning and he was looking for people to file reports on what they had seen. He didn't say what he thought it was. Here's his reporting site to send in your reports.

I saw this event and viewed it with binoculars from the time I noticed it until the plume became too faint to see (20-25 minutes). Here is the text of the report I filed at NUFORC:
********************BEGIN**************************
I walked outside around 1920 eastern time, looked up, and
my eye was caught by what looked like a bright comet with a very
well-defined conical tail (it looked like the pictures i've seen of comet
Kohoutek). It was similar in size to a full moon. I went in and got my
binoculars (12 power) and resumed watching. With binoculars, I was able to
see that the object was moving slowly, referencing the stars nearby. Over
the course of 20 or 25 minutes, the object moved in an ENE direction from
near the constellation Pegasus until it became too faint to see in the
middle of the constellation Cassiopeia. Several times during viewing, I
observed a single bright flash like an aircraft strobe, and twice I saw
objects not unlike satellites in brightness and speed pass moving west to
within a degree (a full moon being around 1/2 a degree) of the object.
*********************END**********************

Would anyone like to speculate what the occasional "strobe" was? I dont know why a rocket would have aircraft strobes, and at any rate, they wouldn't be visible to me on the ground from orbit. Energy weapon test? Also, twice during my viewing, I noticed small lights (not visible with the naked eye) passing very close to the object. They could have been passing satellites, but they passed well within a lunar diameter of the plume. I was using 12 power binoculars to view the event, and the field of view is relatively small, so I wouldn't have noticed them if they weren't close.

Thoughts?

reply to post by MandolinMaker

Hi MM, High up like that there could still be sunlight reflecting off a shiny surface appearing like a strobe. Aircraft have strobes usually on their lower front surfaces.

I dont think the flashes were reflected sunlight. I've seen satellites catch the sun briefly and its not the same. These flashes were like a single pulse of an aircraft strobe. At that distance, given the inverse square law (something like "Light intensity is proportional to the inverse square of the distance."), it must have been incredibly bright.

Maybe its a new type of spy satellite that takes flash pictures

Could it have been this, just a guess?

Comet 3200 Phaethon (1983 TB)

Found on SpaceWeather.com

Near-Earth Asteroids:

3200 Phaethon
Dec. 10
47 Lunar Distance
Magnitude 14
Size 5 km

en.wikipedia.org...

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

www.activeboard.com...

reply to post by worldwatcher


Hi worldwatcher, I live in southwest Florida. About 7 years ago I saw a similar light in the sky with a tail and called the RSW airport to see if they had seen anything fly over the area. The guy at the tower told me at the time it was a satellite launch out of Cape Canaveral. It is possible that it was the secret satellite launched yesterday evening or even a secondary satellite launch unannounced. Rik Riley





[edit on 12-12-2007 by rikriley]