Saw something interesting tonight

Thought I'd make an introduction as I've been a long time reader as a non-member and member but not a poster. I saw something interesting tonight, so I decided I should make my inaugural post.

Was outside on my balcony tonight about 11:30 pm pacific time looking out east. Saw what I am pretty sure was a satellite since it had the typical trajectory of a satellite you see in the sky. Watched it move from east to west, but the thing I though odd was that is was as bright as Venus is. I've never seen a satellite that bright before and as it got to where I would be looking south the light began to get dimmer and then it disappeared. That struck me as odd and I was thinking "what in the hell". Another thing is that this thing was moving quite fast, it took about 2-3 minutes from when I first saw it in the east to where is went out about halfway across the sky. I thought maybe it was a missile and the burners had gone out. I'm curious as to what may have caused that to happen?

JMO

Edit** Wow didn't realize I've been a member for 4 years. Time flys.

[edit on 17-7-2009 by JMOVA]

[edit on 17-7-2009 by JMOVA]

reply to post by JMOVA

Sounds exactly like a satellite. The ISS can be extremely bright. Satellites can "disappear" half way across the sky as they enter the shadow of the Earth.

Yah I'm sure that's what it was, just haven't seen one look that bright or go out before. J

Watched it move from east to west

It's not the ISS if it goes east to west. The ISS goes west to east, at least around here.

It is about as bright as venus here too though.

I remember a few years ago, I think it was about 2002. Our weather man for the local news station made an announcement that the ISS would be making an appearance at a certain time in the night sky. On that night, the sky was crystal clear.

When the ISS came into view, it was very bright and moving very fast. It was like nothing I have ever seen. It was moving east to west. To be exact it was moving more like northeast to southwest at my location. I live in the states.( Illinois) It was only in view on our horizon for about three to four seconds.......that's how fast it was moving. Pretty incredible.

So, based on my experience, I think you did in fact see the ISS.

Can the ISS even travel NE-SW?

I was under the assumption it always travelled West to East with slight variations (eg: SW-SSW)??

reply to post by oldno7brand


From my perspective it was traveling from NW to SE.(see PS: post below) I remember it like it was yesterday. Tell me something, wouldn't the direction vary depending on where your located on the globe? You say the ISS only travels west to east.(the ORBIT of the ISS is West to East) How can something that's in space have any sense of direction? Is there a N,S,E,W in space? N,S,E,W would only apply to those on earth would it not?

With the earth's rotation involved the perspective of direction would change. Wouldn't it? Can you explain this?


PS: I was just going over my posts. I don't know what I was thinking. Apparently my internal compass was screwed up at the time. I don't know if
it's any different from any other location......it may be though. To me south always represents down (your feet), north represents up(your head), west represents left, and east represents right if you were to lay face down.( from Illinois) The directions I gave in my first post were in fact wrong. The correct ISS direction on that date was from Northwest to Southeast in a diagonal fashion.


[edit on 17-7-2009 by Zeus2573]

reply to post by Zeus2573

You're correct, the ISS can move in any direction (almost) across the local sky. There are some passes with very brief visibility but a long pass with an east to west component can't happen.

Are you familiar with heavens-above? Set your location properly and you can see when the ISS and many other satellites will be making a pass over you.

[edit on 7/17/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Zeus2573

 

You're correct, the ISS can move in any direction (almost) across the local sky.

Looking at the orbit at Nasa's site, it looks like it can be seen to move NW-SE or SW-NE at the equator and W-E nearer the poles. The orbit looks inclined about 45 deg from the equator going counterclockwise from a north pole view.

spaceflight.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Phage


Glad someone is mentioning this subject. Last Saturday i was observing the sky when i saw a light way high up moving across the sky, looked exactly like a satelite. However as i continued to watch it i noticed another light, different in luminosity to move along with it as well, as well as a third.

All three faint lights were traveling eastward from the upper-western sky and continued to move east untill nearly the zenith of the sky. They then slowly curved and went south. All three lights stayed in proportion to each other and were seperate objects.

A friend of mine saw it too, i thought it to be a satelite untill i noticed that there were three lights all moving together, they looked exactly like a traingle of moving stars.

Any thoughts? I can't explain it really and i know what i saw, really couldn't have taped it or else i would have.