A question about stars

I am pretty sure I already know the answer but I need to ask anyways. Tonight I went outside and there was a star out there flickering back and forth different colors. I came inside the house and went outside about half an hour to an hour later the star was gone, is this possible?

Yeah definitely possible.

They call it an 'imagination'.

I'm sure it wasn't gone. I'm not an astrologer but I would assume you lost it or your vision of it was altered in some way.

From my very basic knowledge of astronomy, you either just lost it among the other stars or the Earth's rotation caused the star to go over the horizon.

I do know the 'flickering colors' is actually just the atmospheric gases.

The more you know.

If the star was an airplane, it could disappear much faster. If the star was really a planet near the horizon, then one hour is enough time to dissapear. If the star was really a star and it was overhead and not blocked by a cloud, then it likely only shifted a slight amount in the sky. If you know how to take a picture or make an accurate drawing of it and other nearby bright stars noting the direction, time, and general location, other members here can likely tell you what you were looking at if it wasn't an airplane.

If it wasn't an airplane, it should reappear about the same place in the sky on the following night at the same time. A planet may shift location slightly. A satellite or airplane may not be there.

No my vision was not altered, I am wide awake, I know right where it was and it is now gone. I did not imagine it I know a little bit about astronomy, this has happened one other time before.

It wasn't an airplane, it wasn't a planet, it wasn't close enough to the horizon to have gone below it. So I am right a star cannot move that fast.

Well maybe I should report this to Mufon. I wish I would've took a picture now. But I know what stars look like and it looked like a star flickering through the atmosphere. I will next time get a picture and post it.

Thank you everyone

I have seen airplanes appear to be stars and stay in one location for a while or so it appears because you are far away, then I've seen them fly off, always looking like a star I suppose due to the distance.

This is just an observation. I'm not sure what you saw or how fast it moved. I would look again tommorrow at the same time. To take a picture may require some astro photo skill due to low light levels.

With my old camera, I would leave the camera lens open about 30 to 40 seconds before I saw star blur in the picture. I had a lens cable to open and close the lens manually. I haven't tried taken any astro photos with a digital camera. I'm sure there are special tricks and techniques to take pictures of the night sky with it as well if a regular digital camera is capable of it. I don't know if you have experience with astro photography.

Originally posted by Stari
No my vision was not altered, I am wide awake, I know right where it was and it is now gone. I did not imagine it I know a little bit about astronomy, this has happened one other time before.

Well, either you did lose it, or a sun probably much bigger than ours decided that it had just about enough of your perving on it and opted to remove itself from reality.

Of coarse, it could have been anything, but this premise is the most likely.

reply to post by orionthehunter


It wasn't an airplane I know what those look like as well in the sky and yes they can look like it's standing still in the sky but what it's really doing is coming straight at you.

It'd be nice to know if this was star was near the horizon or virtually straight overhead....
Although I'm already convinced of the answer.....

Anywho...most of the time when someone claims a "twinkling" UFO that moved out of sight in a relatively short amount of time (in my experience)it turns out to be a star seen near the horizon. And the sparkling, well that is what pretty much gives it away IMO....it's "simple" atmospheric refraction caused air pockets of differing densities and humidity....the air pockets each individually act like lenses....this is also the same cause for the changing colors...

I also saw that you said it "wasn't close enough to the horizon to have moved beyond it" but....the lingering question is...how close to the horizon was it actually? It's tough to estimate how much an object in the night sky can move in just an hour.....unless you've extensively graphed and data mined.....(which most of us havent)

Edit to add: I'm assuming it was on the horizon and simply moved out of view. Check again tomorrow night

A2D

reply to post by Stari

half an hour to an hour later the star was gone, is this possible?

Sure it is...

You could try looking for it tomorrow night.

reply to post by Agree2Disagree


Like I said I do have a telescope I do know how planets move through the night sky. I have never tried to see a star through my telescope before. Although I do know how stars behave. But in case I was wrong I was wanting everyone's opinion. I will look again tomorrow night if I find it again I will try my best to get a picture. And even though I will feel silly I will post it LOL.

reply to post by intrptr


Okay that was a great video it matched what I'm seeing perfectly.

Look it up on a star chart. It should be in the same place at the same time tomorrow (unless there were clouds in the way the second time you looked for it and ditto that next time...).

If you're trying to get people to say you must have seen a UFO, and it just looks like a star, what good is the sighting? Even when people see 'stars' run all over the place in the sky like a dogfight, no one else believes them; if there's video, it's a 'hoax', etc.

You want proof of ET life, you're either going to need actual physical proof or simply see enough to convince yourself and no one else. Just like lots of things in life.

reply to post by Stari

is this possible?

Hell No

The stickied topic on the front page of this forum, especially for you: www.abovetopsecret.com...

When you go out and see a bright light, here's some info that you can take down to help identify it.

Date
Time (within a half hour)
Location (approximately and including elevation if possible)
Altitude of object
Azimuth of object
As detailed of description as possible. Things to include how long you watched it, what color it was, what constellation it was in, and anything else you may think to be important.

Another excellent site is www.heavens-above.com

Go to Heavens-Above and register for a free account. When you log in you can get exact locations to see satellites, space junk like discarded rocket bodies, the ISS, the Hubble, etc. The site gives the time to see the object, the direction to look, and the angle above the horizon to look.

I like to go to Heavens-Above and then go outside and get pictures of satellites. I'm trying to get a picture of every Iridium communication satellite.

Another great, free astronomy program is Stellarium. It's what I use before I go outside for a night's observing with my telescope. It's free, easy to use, has great graphics, and shows you exactly how the sky looks outside. It shows stars, planets, and other 'stuff'. You can turn on or off the lines drawing constellations, star names, and even artwork showing the constellations.

reply to post by signalfire


I don't need proof of UFO's because I have video taped one once. I did look it up on a Star chart and I believe it must have been Gem. Plus no clouds tonight at all.

Thanks for those links wildspace

The twinkling is from the stars light moving through our atmosphere.

The whole night sky will pass by because of the Earths rotation.

A satellite would move faster, but I've never seen it twinkling before. I guess that's because the light reflected from it is existing from a lot more photons ( As they just left the Sun.) then the few photons, that made it all the way from it star, for us to see.

Like a flashlight with new batteries, against one that's way far away losing brightness cause there is a lot of stuff that blocks light in the ... light years it takes to get here.

Just 2 cts of mine.

Well, it rained all day today and now it is cloudy. It has been about 2 weeks since I saw it last time so I will eventually get it hopefully in a picture.