Unknown Glowing Light In Evening Western Sky - Starship?

reply to post by signalfire


It showed in the southwestern part of the sky, when I saw it. my house faces directly South, so it may be skewed a bit. I used google sky map and it was accurate on everything else I was looking at. It said fomalhaut. if I'm wrong, ok...just reporting what I saw and what my app said.

This was cooler....
Weather Snob

People in Japan this past Saturday and Sunday evenings were treated to a “space fireworks” show consisting of three balls of red light in the sky, each glowing as bright as the moon. These luminous orbs are the result of three clouds of lithium vapor released into the ionosphere by a rocket launched in an experiment to study the atmosphere.

eternity4us
People are saying they see a red light in the Western sky around 8:00p.m

So I checked.
The guy says he is in Florida, on the "gulf coast", so I checked times for setting of objects.
Not knowing his exact location, I used Tampa, but it wont be more than a few minutes out in any case.

Sunset: 6:58pm.
The location he points to on his phone app sets not long after, at 7:45pm.
So there is no way he could be seeing it and filming it at 8:00.

Venus, on the other hand, is nicely positioned at that time.

alfa1

eternity4us
People are saying they see a red light in the Western sky around 8:00p.m

So I checked.
The guy says he is in Florida, on the "gulf coast", so I checked times for setting of objects.
Not knowing his exact location, I used Tampa, but it wont be more than a few minutes out in any case.

Sunset: 6:58pm.
The location he points to on his phone app sets not long after, at 7:45pm.
So there is no way he could be seeing it and filming it at 8:00.

Venus, on the other hand, is nicely positioned at that time.

He's not saying he's seeing it at 8p.m. others are *approximating* the time. I didn't make that clear.

So, you think it's Venus? All those colors, of course he's on a camera and this will distort images. Venus I always have seen it be very bright white.

C'mon amateur astronomers, pipe in here.
We see this all the time.

You take a peek at a bright star just above the horizon at dusk or dawn... The atmosphere turns it into a fireworks show.
One of the most common is when Sirius is in that position. Twinkles with every color of the rainbow, without the aid of binoculars or a telescope. You seriously think it is not a star, but in the case of a dawn condition, you notice how the twinkling stops before the Sun comes up. In a dusk presence, it gets more dramatic as it sets. Optical aid makes this much more dramatic. It is really a cool observation of the nature of our atmosphere. The effect varies with the instability of the atmosphere. That's basically it.

I can not blame people for thinking they are seeing something more than a dramatic lensing effect. But dramatic it is, for scientific reasons, and nothing else. The atmosphere acts like an oscillating prism when looked through the horizontal. We that use telescopes a lot know this all so well. You should all know it.

I saw something very similar to what was in the video the night after the last meteor shower. I only was using naked eye. I spent 10 minutes looking at it. It seemed more blue to me but the flashing is spot on. granted it was not distorted from zoom. Seemed larger than a normal star though. I want to say the moon was out too but a don't remember. My impression at the first sight was "wow, that plane had some funky strobes". I first thought it was moving as it was about where I see commercial air traffic on approach and take off. At least in the same area. After paying attention to it it was clear that it was not moving.
I did pull up google sky map and did not seem to have any planets nearby. It would not center on a particular star in the app either.The app was "bouncy" so I did not put too much into it. I was beautiful and a reminder of why I like to watch the sky.
The general direction was south by southwest.

Venus.

Atmospheric Prismatic Dispersion
example through telescope

The hexagonal shape in the video is due cheap camera and aperture leaves.

about 3 or 4 weeks ago, here in Québec, I saw the exact same thing several days in a row. I was fishing in the St-Laurent with a friend. It was the first star to appear in the sky even when the sky was still blue (like venus does sometimes) It was a very big red star and it dissapeared beyond the horizon approximatly 2 hours later.
It was in west direction.
I dunno if venus can appear red to us due to atmospheric thing or whatever( usually it's white) but if it can be red, I think it was Venus

- please disregard this post, I did not read it correctly and made a mistake

reply to post by sweeper84


Something to keep in mind is that most everything you see in the sky is going to be RISING from an easterly direction (this changes to some degrees the further North you are on the Globe, and applies similarly to folks in the Southern Hemisphere the further South they're located).
Alternatively, most things seen in Westerly directions will be setting, and soon to 'disappear' over the horizon.

The closer to the horizon anything is viewed, just like the sunrise and sunset is known and immortalized by every would be poet on the planet that's ever existed, you get prismatic dispersion, and atmospheric lensing as well as other fun effects that result in colors.
This is true for any star or planet, just like the sun.

Meteorological phenomenon like ice particles, haze, smog, or even a volcanic eruption on the other side of the planet in some place you never heard of and don't even know how to spell can all have varying effects on viewing conditions of astronomical objects.

Hope this helps.

alfa1

eternity4us
People are saying they see a red light in the Western sky around 8:00p.m

So I checked.
The guy says he is in Florida, on the "gulf coast", so I checked times for setting of objects.
Not knowing his exact location, I used Tampa, but it wont be more than a few minutes out in any case.

Sunset: 6:58pm.
The location he points to on his phone app sets not long after, at 7:45pm.
So there is no way he could be seeing it and filming it at 8:00.

Venus, on the other hand, is nicely positioned at that time.

I'm think it could be Arcturus. Arcturus -- at least in my sky -- seems to scintillate (twinkle) greatly, alternating color as it twinkles, as does the object in the image. He did say that Venus was to the left of the object, and currently Venus is to the left of Arcturus in the western sky at around 8:00 PM.

I know he said Arcturus was further to the right than the object, but I don't think he necessarily had the cell phone pointed at the area of the sky he was filming.

sweeper84
about 3 or 4 weeks ago, here in Québec, I saw the exact same thing several days in a row. I was fishing in the St-Laurent with a friend. It was the first star to appear in the sky even when the sky was still blue (like venus does sometimes) It was a very big red star and it dissapeared beyond the horizon approximatly 2 hours later.
It was in west direction.
I dunno if venus can appear red to us due to atmospheric thing or whatever( usually it's white) but if it can be red, I think it was Venus

What you saw could have been Arcturus. Arcturus is reddish/orange-ish, in the western sky right after sunset, and is one of the brightest stars in the sky -- often visible even in the dusky glow right after sunset.

Being that Arcturus is often seen when it is relatively low on the horizon and viewed through thicker atmosphere, it can often twinkle wildly, flashing different colors as it twinkles (although it is generally a ruddy orange).

As I mentioned in my post above, I think it is possible that the OP was filming Arcturus.

reply to post by eternity4us


Yes it's autofocus on the camera hunting to find focus !!!!

It's Venus ! It's Venus!!, trolls of course will scream til the end of time. I have seen it too, one night it's there the next night it was not there. Of course the cloudy weather could play into its visability but I did not see it in the sky when I had a break in the clouds near dusk, the last few days after many days of seeing it. It was like 2 stars on top of each other sort of a O looking star very bright , as bright as Venus but it was not Venus that is for certain.

I'm going with Arcturus as well.

I had just come inside from looking at it when I saw this thread.

Never in the video, do you see the references he's mentioning, and the shape you see, while he's zoomed in, is nothing but a focus issue.

I'd bet money on it.

reply to post by eternity4us

Well he says it's flashing but I didn't see it. Red light in the western evening sky I call a setting sun lol.

reply to post by Britster1821


Will the app work on my tablet? It's very cloudy today so I probably won't see it but I will be looking. A triple star system. Not a UFO but cool none the less.

reply to post by Emerys


Wow you have your own sky lol. Lucky you. I will be looking over the next few,days. It's very cloudy here today so I don't hold out much hope for tonight.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I know mars looks red and Venus looks blue to me. Or very light blue almost white. They don't pulse though. Planets don't flicker only stars do.

I caught something in the western sky two nights ago. It was as the sun was setting and was flashing a bright red over and over. I assumed it was an airplane reflecting the setting sun. Only problem was it stayed in one spot for like a half an hour.

It was some sort of spinning shape that could only be seen every time the broad side reflected the sun. If you blinked, you had to try really hard to find it again.