Perfect circle constellation??

Hello all,

This is my first thread on ATS, not overly interesting, but one which will hopefully cast some light on something a friend and I saw in the night sky one night, if my memory serves correctly it was 2005.

OK, I live in Midlothian Scotland, and my friend and I were out for a drive with a couple of mates up the backroads of a wee place called Birkenside, we had pulled in to a clearing outside the gate to a field and in the sky, we saw what at first looked to be a plane approaching front on (it was night time I should add, the sky was black) and at first gave it no further thought.

But, after about 5 minutes, this light hadn`t changed at all, it just hung there in the sky. We watched it for a good 15 minutes and it remained unchanged.
Then we drove off.

Before I get slated for none of us taking a picture or video, we simply didn`t, it never crossed our minds.

So, we drove through Birkenside, and my friend and I parted company with the others in the car and started the 3 mile walk to my house in Mayfield.

The main part of that walk is via a back road known as the Crawlees, this road heads more or less in an Easterly direction going toward my house, to the left is the Midlothian valley, and to the right fields and trees.

I was pondering what we had saw in the sky and looked up again to the south east hoping to see something else, and I did. It was a" constellation" of "stars" forming a perfect circle. Uncannily perfect.

Iv`e always had an interest in the stars and night sky, so am familiar with most of the well known constellations, and I thought if this was normal, I would surely be aware of it.

Can anyone tell me of a constellation that is by nature, a perfect circle?

To give a bit of perspective, the constellation covered an area of sky similar to that of the plough in winter in the northern hemisphere.

Alas, I cannot remember what time of year it was we saw this, and have no other details I can add to clarify this phenomenon.

It`s simply been something we saw, couldn`t explain, and shoved to the back of our minds till now, because ATS seems a logical place to ask about it.

Anyway, hope someone can shed light on this, it may just simply be a constellation I never knew about, hadn`t ever seen before, and have never seen since.


Namaste` to you all.
Psilo Simon. xx

If you go to Stellarium and download their free program, you can plug in your information (date/time/location) and find out what stars/planets you were seeing Super fun program!!

However, if you cant remember the date/time it might not help you. But good program to have for future sky watching!

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

[edit on February 3rd 2010 by greeneyedleo]

Ah, cheers, I`ll have a look at that.