"It's just a Satellite" - Is this possible?

I've heard a lot of people say that moving lights in the sky are simply satellites.

In paticular a couple nights ago, there was a perfect solid light, no blinking or pulsing, (similar to how Venus looks - it was solid, white, and round, didn't glare as much as Venus does thou) that moved across the sky at a steady speed before dissapearing as it went towards a clouded patch of the sky.

Now looking at the NASA UFO's, especially the "Formation Over Africa" it was like seeing something like that but from Earths perspective with the scale of the object being relative to our position looking up.

My friend who has never seen the Nasa vids or who has yet to make up her mind over UFOs simple said it was a satellite and then another person that was listening into our conversation, laughed and said the same thing.

One question: Do satellites actually look like a planet moving across the sky?
I guess the speed it was moving could be that of how the Earth spins if it was stantionary but i don't see why a Satellite would be a solid ball of light like a bright planet, aren't satellites ment to be taking in solar energy to run rather than producing a lot of bright light for no reason?
If it was just reflecting light, wouldn't it be an odd shape or change intensity as it moved into a different position in the sky?
How big would a satellite have to be to create a ball of light the size of Venus? Seems like it would have to be bloody huge to be able to reflect or produce that much light.

I'm happy to accept Satellites resembling UFOs if that's the case but if not, i find it interesting how that has become a standard train of thought for people that don't follow the UFO movement? How many have they actually seen and just said 'oh, that's just a satellite' without giving it any more thought?

So i guess my questions is:
Is it possible to spot a satellite with the naked eye that, for lack of a better comparison, would be like spotting Venus moving at a steady pace and path across the sky?

This was near Melbourne, Australia if that helps. I've never seen that before and if it was just a satellite then i reckon i would of seen heaps of them and you could probably even be able to work out when you will see them i guess if that was the case?

What you have descibed sounds like a satellite to me. They are visible over cities in well lit areas and because they don't have light sources of their own they don't sparkle like stars. They are more constant. They can be seen more often after dusk and before dawn as they are only really visible when the sun shines on them. Some mornings about 4 am I see up to ten within an hour all constant steady lights going from one side of the sky to another in diff directions, each one. The space station is brighter, more like Venus, sometimes you can actually see lights on in it if it is low enough.

UFO behave weird, satellites stay on the one course across the sky.

How many have they actually seen and just said 'oh, that's just a satellite' without giving it any more thought?

Oh my God! I have seen them and I live in Melbourne!
Alot of people I asked who I thought may have known more about what they could be simply shrugged them off.

I see them at various times of afternoon, evening and night, and not every day but often enough for me to wonder 'what if ...'
They sometimes linger, some are bigger and brighter than others but they usually are around the same size and color (vary from pale blue to bright bright white). I will try get a pic of the next one I see.

And I do not doubt what I see may sometimes be just a satellite but sometimes it gives me tingles.

Now I am no big UFO-believer, I do not discount they aren't out there, if I was asked if I believed I would say yes.
I am SO glad U brought this up and it isn't just me!

Looking forward to any information anyone has.

Originally posted by Mayet
What you have descibed sounds like a satellite to me. They are visible over cities in well lit areas and because they don't have light sources of their own they don't sparkle like stars. They are more constant. They can be seen more often after dusk and before dawn as they are only really visible when the sun shines on them. Some mornings about 4 am I see up to ten within an hour all constant steady lights going from one side of the sky to another in diff directions, each one. The space station is brighter, more like Venus, sometimes you can actually see lights on in it if it is low enough.

UFO behave weird, satellites stay on the one course across the sky.

That's interesting, could of been a satellite i guess.

There was no sun in the sky thou and it was a fairly bright light. At first it was next to Mars and that's why i noticed it, i thought it was odd for Venus to be next to Mars, then i noticed it was moving and just watched as it went across the sky.

I guess if a UFO has a place to be, it wouldn't really behave weird, the ones on the NASA vids move dead straight to their positions and that's what it reminded me of at the time, it covered a lot of ground in a short time.

I've never seen a satellite before which is odd if they are easy to spot.
Favoring the Satellite opinion would be its path and steady pace i guess.

The other UFO i saw a few months ago was around the same area and was a solid defined rectangle pulsing between orange and yellow, similar to how fire changes colour. It sat at cloud height, level with the ground and was about an inch in size in the sky (which is pretty big considering how high up it was) and didn't budge even thou there was a strong storm rolling in. The clouds eventually covered it over.

Now that one i know wasn't a satellite, nor was there anything natural about it!

A mate of mine also told me about some big white lights he saw over the bay late one night, the description sounded familiar and i showed him the Phoenix lights vid and he said that's pretty close to what he saw, about 5 huge lights in a perfect line moving across the sky.

Oh my God! I have seen them and I live in Melbourne!
Alot of people I asked who I thought may have known more about what they could be simply shrugged them off.

I see them at various times of afternoon, evening and night, and not every day but often enough for me to wonder 'what if ...'
They sometimes linger, some are bigger and brighter than others but they usually are around the same size and color (vary from pale blue to bright bright white). I will try get a pic of the next one I see.

....

I'm in Melbourne - Australia, & I see the same things. I also see (not often) but patterns too. 4 - 8 of smaller bol's, in -dare I say it - formation These tend to sit in the one spot though.

I see satelites & the ISS too, however these 'bol's' are cool to watch.

About a month ago, I pointed one out to a mate of mine - it was fun to watch him apply logic to something he had no idea about.

How come people feel the need to explain things - enjoy the show i say.

Interesting ain't it!!!

My understanding, and I might be wrong on this, is that sattelites can be seen for about an hour after sunset, and about an hour before sunrise. That's the point when there is enough light hitting them from the sun to reflect, and let them be seen. As far as the brightness, it would depend on the type and altitude of the sattelite.

I'm pretty sure you can see satellites at any time of the evening, (I've seen them late at night), because they are far enough away from the earth that the sun's rays are hitting them when you are on the dark side of the earth. They are really cool because they do move totally steady across the sky and cross it in just a minute or so.

Ok, here's the answer to that. We're both right.

You can see satellites pass overhead from a dark site, such as rural Wisconsin. What you see is sunlight reflected from the satellite: since the satellite is higher up in the sky, it may not be in the Earth's shadow even though you are (otherwise it would not be night!). You can tell that an object you see is a satellite rather than a plane or star because it will move steadily across the night sky over the period of a few minutes, often "disappearing" as it crosses into the Earth's shadow. As the night progresses, you will see satellites "disappear" closer to the horizon until after several hours after sunset, even satellites in low Earth orbit (about 200-800 miles above the Earth's surface) will be in the Earth's shadow. Satellites in geosynchronous orbits are high enough (about 22,000 miles up) that they will almost always be sunlight, but they are too far away for them to be visible.
imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov...

What exactly on a satellite will reflect light in such a way that it creates a perfect ball, or the illusion of?

Seems like from the info given that you can see satellites in certain conditions, i just don't know why they can all be so bright and reflective?



I know theres plenty of different types up there but is it ment to be the Solar panelling which is reflective? Wouldn't that kind of go against the design of solar panelling which is ment to absorb and not reflect light? I know the ones they use on housing for example are coated with an anti-reflective coating for that purpose.

I guess to answer my own question:

Largest Solar Panel Array In Space
On December 5, 2000, the crew of the space shuttle "Endeavour" deployed the largest ever solar panel array in space, to provide electrical power to the International Space Station. These panels were the first of four sets to be installed. The new outsize solar panels are so reflective that the station will be visible to the human eye, and only outshone by the Moon and bright planets such as Venus, and the star Sirius. The panels are capable of generating enough electricity for 30 households. ISS is a joint project between 16 countries, due to be completed in 2006.

www.guinnessworldrecords.com...


I guess that's the reason... thou it's also a nice cover story for UFO sightings!

Kind of like the 'ice particles on the windows' in regards to the NASA UFO vids.

Originally posted by one_small_step
I'm in Melbourne - Australia, & I see the same things. I also see (not often) but patterns too. 4 - 8 of smaller bol's, in -dare I say it - formation These tend to sit in the one spot though.

I see satelites & the ISS too, however these 'bol's' are cool to watch.

About a month ago, I pointed one out to a mate of mine - it was fun to watch him apply logic to something he had no idea about.

How come people feel the need to explain things - enjoy the show i say.

Interesting ain't it!!!

It sure is, I never really did feel the need to question but I did wonder sometimes
Thanks for clarifying all

Originally posted by ImJaded

How many have they actually seen and just said 'oh, that's just a satellite' without giving it any more thought?

Oh my God! I have seen them and I live in Melbourne!
Alot of people I asked who I thought may have known more about what they could be simply shrugged them off.

I see them at various times of afternoon, evening and night, and not every day but often enough for me to wonder 'what if ...'
They sometimes linger, some are bigger and brighter than others but they usually are around the same size and color (vary from pale blue to bright bright white). I will try get a pic of the next one I see.

And I do not doubt what I see may sometimes be just a satellite but sometimes it gives me tingles.

Now I am no big UFO-believer, I do not discount they aren't out there, if I was asked if I believed I would say yes.
I am SO glad U brought this up and it isn't just me!

Looking forward to any information anyone has.

Help, I'm in Melb, Oz too and I never see any satellites in the sky. What times are they? I wanna see one.

Originally posted by Nventual
Help, I'm in Melb, Oz too and I never see any satellites in the sky. What times are they? I wanna see one.

Hi Nventual, not sure if it's a matter of location or not but I do live in the west where there are big open fields, hence spotting them is easier I guess. I see them mostly in the late afternoon and evening time. Good luck! they can be very nice to see

It sounds like a satellite. I’m up in BC Canada. When I'm out with my telescope, I see between 2 and 10 in an average night. They look like a semi bright star. Some flash some don't. They travel in an absolute straight line. The satellites that are not in geosynchronous orbit (the ones moving) generally take between 30 and 60 seconds to travel completely across the visible sky. The ones in geosynchronous orbit, you can actually look up their coordinates to locate them in the sky. On the site www.meade.com... (specific link www.meade.com... ) there is a photo taken of the International Space Station in 2002. (Its about halfway down the page) It was taken through that 12” LX200 scope. Lol, it goes to show what today’s telescopes can see 260 miles away if you know exactly where and when to look…

Sounds like a satellite.
More specifically, an Iridium satellite.
There are quite a few of those up there, and
they produce VERY BRIGHT "flares".
The flare occurs when you, the sun, and the satellite are lined up
just right for you to catch the reflection.
If you'd like to see more of them, go to
www.heavens-above.com.
You can produce a chart, based on your location.
The chart will tell you where to look, what time, and how bright the
reflection will be.


Here is a photo I took, using one of those charts.


This was about a 15 second exposure, you can see that it started dim, then brightened, then dimmed again, before completely disappearing.

I like to take people outside, right before I know one is about to occur, then point at the sky, It appears where I point..
I am truly a geek.

Would it be possible to map the paths of Satellites? Do they eventually follow their same tracks in a pattern, time, direction, location depending i guess on their distance from Earth?
Would it be possible to know "at this time, this location in the sky a satellite will go past any minute now" and then see it go by?

That would make a good website, a road map of satellite travel - the next best thing to a UFO on demand show.

The answer is yes!

Check out the website I mentioned.
They have charts for pretty much all the visible ones..
And the space station too!

aww that site is awesome spacedoubt! thank U for sharing with us

Nventual I took the liberty of searching for the next Iridium flare here in Melbourne, keep an eye out Wednesday

Search Period Start: 21:47, Monday, 28 November, 2005
Search Period End: 21:47, Monday, 05 December, 2005
Observer's Location: Melbourne ( 37.8170°S, 144.9670°E)
Local Time: Australian Eastern Daylight Time (GMT + 11:00)
Magnitude Cut-off: -6

Is anybody able to assess if this will be easy to see or not, I don't know much about this. Does the magnitude tell U so ?
Thanks.

[edit on 28-11-2005 by ImJaded]

You are very welcome..

and yes your chart shows a very bright one.

My photo is a of a magnitude -8, a negative number.

-6.9 is very bright also. Much brighter than any star.

Yes, it's possible.

Back in the 1950's-1970's, when we lived where there was a lot less light pollution, we used to lie on blankets outside and watch for the NASA missions. We watched Telstar and Vanguard and saw a few of the astronaut capsules. They are very bright if you know where to look for them and they travel quickly depending on which way they're orbiting.

Lately, the Iridium satellites have been in a lot of UFO reports. They provide a bright flash in the sky (nearly as bright as the sun... you can see them during the day if you know where to look) and it's startling if you don't know there are satellites up there catching the sun just right to produce a star during the day.

www.heavens-above.com...

Sat timings, sky charts etc... for any location on earth