Satellite question (no pic no vid)

First off I am not suggesting this was a ufo, pretty sure it was a satellite.

I was just outside looking up at the sky as usual and I noticed a star moving. It looked identical to a star and was way to high to be a plane.

So I assumed it was simply a satellite. Now I have seen satellites before (at least I think they were satellites). But this one seemed to be moving much quicker than I usually see.

My question is how fast do satellites actually move across the sky?

This thing moved from the left to the right and out of sight within about 15 seconds. I have been able to follow others I have seen for at least a minute or more until I can't see them anymore.

It is based on parallax, if the satellite was in LEO(low earth orbit) it would appear to move faster to you.

Can you please mention the direction of travel, if the satellite moved from the north west to south east or south west to north east, it is the ISS, if not it might be some other satellites in polar orbit, if you watched it near sunset.

Use this website to track satellites,

www.heavens-above.com





[edit on 18/10/08 by peacejet]

reply to post by peacejet


It was moving from east to west. Just for the record I am near Toronto in Canada.

Thanks for the link i will check it out.

You didn't say if it moved across the whole sky, horizon to horizon. If it did that in 15 seconds I have no idea what it was. The ISS takes about 6 minutes to cover the whole sky and it is in a relatively low orbit. You're not going to see any satellite beat that time by very much.

[edit on 18-10-2008 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


It was pretty much above me and south, so I would say about half way. But I also lost sight of it a bit before it hit the horizon.

Anyway thanks for the responses. I was just curious how fast they move.

Sounds a bit too fast to be a satellite, but a slow meteor can do a very good satellite impression sometimes, as well as cross half the sky.

A few questions - was the brightness constant? was the color pure white? what time did this occur?

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


The brightness was constant although it appeared to flicker a little just before I lost sight of it. I just figured it was my eyes trying to adjust as it got further away.

It looked like the rest if the stars (whitish) only it was moving. It was roughly 8:30pm EST

Flickering would suggest that it was a meteor. IME meteors are more likely to show changes in brightness at the end of their track, rather than their start. I've never seen any flicker from an orbiting satellite.

Any color would point towards meteor, but obviously, pure white could be either.

We could probably nail this (although I think we already have our culprit) if we knew how high in the Eastern sky the object appeared. Since the sun would be below the horizon in the West, a satellite could only be illuminated above a certain angle/altitude in the sky. Too far to the East and/or too low, and the object would be in Earth's shadow, thus ruling out reflective objects such as satellites.

[edit on 19-10-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


It is not really uncommon for satellites to change intensity. Some are rotating intentionally, some unintentionally. The rotation or tumble will cause the effect.

reply to post by Phage


Yes, I agree, but changes in intensity tend to be quite smooth. Even when stuff is tumbling, you'll usually see an obvious increase, and an obvious decrease either side of the peak intensity - fast, but easily perceptable. I would classify flickering as near instantainious increases/decreases in brighness, and meteors are more likely to display this kind of behaviour as flakes of material are stripped away and ablated.

Also, if it was a satellite that was tumbling, then there would probably be changes of brightness throughout the path of the object, not just at the end.

[edit on 19-10-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


I agree the description for this object fits a meteor or space junk far more closely than a satellite. I was just pointing out that satellites do change in intensity. I've seen the ISS hold a steady intensity but then brighten and dim as it's entered earth's shadow. I actually wouldn't classify it as flickering either but the term is subject to a bit of interpretation.

Good points Phage, and I agree with all you said, but, I think we have already pretty much ruled out re-entering space junk - as I'm sure you are probably aware, to de-orbit, angular momentum must be decreased, so re-entry would likely appear to be slower than even orbiting satellites. The OP is pretty clear about this being significantly faster than satellites he has observed in the past.

I'm pretty certain the OP observed a natural meteor.