I spotted 30 satellites last night in an hour and a half is that possible ?

reply to post by BlackDove


Thanks for your post ,I also noticed some were faster than others I guess it may be to do with their height close ones moving faster than distant ones. I saw more satellites than planes last night, I've never seen so many. My favourite was the first one I saw at approx 10.30pm in the south west it started off looking like a regular sat then suddenly grew large and very bright appearing even brighter than the iss ( i have filmed the ISS passing over link here www.youtube.com... ) before fading away completely.

it's def. Jupiter...i saw it the past couple nights and checked Google Sky on my phone just to verify...

Originally posted by MadMaxZombie
it's def. Jupiter...i saw it the past couple nights and checked Google Sky on my phone just to verify...

Wrong thread This one is about MOVING satellites not stationary planets

reply to post by tarifa37


yo!

This is pretty normal, the clearer the skies and the amount of light being reflected from the moon (as well as suns position over the horizion) will all effect how much you can see. As already stated their are thousands of the little blighters up their , just waiting to be hit.

30 in an hour and a half could be alot, but really you got lucky! well done, the only time i ever seen an amount like you have in a short range of time, was when the ashcloud was kicking about a year or so ago, and due to that their was absolutely nothing in the sky (over blackpool, where i stayed at the time)

Theirs also a meteor shower which we are in the vicinity of at this moment, theirs a chance you may have seen a few of them (unlikely, but possible)

Edit:: @zorgon , it should be said , as nice as the debris pic is (i love it) that ISS's path chances with every pass, and the iss's path in that pic was just at the time the image was made. (it always goes west to east, but never really in the same flightpath)

reply to post by tarifa37


Yep, i believe without a doubt some of them were not man made, in fact one was covering so much ground for its height / speed, I was waiting for it to burn up, or show itself as a shooting star or something. I have lived at this location for 10 years, and check the night sky religiously, and I have never, ever seen a display like the one witnessed last night. Truly amazing. Thanks again for making this thread.

reply to post by zorgon


I LOL'ed at this.

What you experienced was being in the shadow of the earth as the sun set. The satellites are still being illuminated by the sun up in the atmosphere but on earth where you are standing the sun has already set and is dusk.

It happened with me last year... I was watching these objects traverse the sky anticipating one of them to change direction... but none of them did.

Im down with you bro...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by zookey
Get a satellite program and watch how crowded it is up there,

Here is the tracking data for the new secret x-37 space plane, second flight launched Mar 2011

LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS: OTV 2

www.n2yo.com...

Just passing over Korea now

Wonder what it is up too?

edit on 25-7-2011 by zorgon because: (no reason given)

I'd like to know what it is doing up there too. It may just be one hell of a coincidence but the x-37 was launched the day the big earthquake hit Japan. Now I didn't see where it was positioned at that time but when the big 7.5 aftershock hit it was directly above Japan (in fact it was DIRECTLY above Fukushima). If you search ATS for 'x-37 Japan' you should find my post at the time and other posters then confirmed it. A few days later there was another major tremor in NZ and again the X-37 was directly above and this was again confirmed by another poster on ATS. Keep your eye on this thing next time there is a major quake or any major 'natural' event for that matter.

The Delta Aquarid meteor shower and the Perseid meteor shower converge this time of year if that's any help to ya!

Originally posted by tarifa37
We had clear skies above Kent UK last night so I went outside at 10.30pm to do a bit of star gazing immediately I saw an object ( satellite) moving across the sky west to north the object suddenly got very bright then faded. I decided to stick around and see if I could spot any more. I didn't have to wait long this time in the sky to the east came two moving in opposite directions then another moving north to south.I was watching theses with the naked eye but would also use my binoculars. ( the best way to spot them in a large sky). For the next 90 mins I counted thirty satellites ( four in the same part of sky at once) plus four shooting stars one that left a vapour or smoke trail. My question is how is it possible to see so many in such a short space of time and were they all satellites. Most objects were in the south eastern sky.

I was certain that this thread as going to talking about the number of Satellites that were visible in the skies above Sydney Australia tonight. I see them all the time but tonight was without doubt the most I have ever seen in a short space of time. Twice I saw two satelites directly intersect at the same point at the same time (obviously orbiting at different heights). In the first instance one came from the North and one from the south and in the second instance one was travelling NW-SE and the other SW-NE.

spaceweather.com

I like this site, at the top is a satellite tracker, enter your zip code.
At the bottom are links to stereo, near earth asteroids and the like. I find it useful for my telescope viewing.
You can also download stellarium which will give live satellite tracking info for your area.

Originally posted by tarifa37
reply to post by markymint

 

I was aware that there are hundreds of satellites up there what amazed me is that I saw so many in a relatively short space of time all crossing above my part of the sky.Just thinking how large the earth is and these satellites were all crossing directly over Kent but then again at that hight I guess that a very large area could view them. Mods please feel free to move thread.

The amount of satellites you can see is due to the position of the sun, or moon(sometimes) over the(your) horizon.
Satellites obviously don't have lights, and we only see them when they reflect light. That's why on some clear starry nights we don't see any, the sun is too far over the horizon, but they are there, all the time. The amount of satellites we see on a given night all depends on the light conditions. This is why some satellites appear to 'switch off', one minute they are in sunlight, the next they move into the earth's shadow.

Originally posted by zorgon


Here is the tracking data for the new secret x-37 space plane, second flight launched Mar 2011

LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS: OTV 2

www.n2yo.com...

Just passing over Korea now

Wonder what it is up too?

hmmm...i'm using NOVA and Orbitron...and neither one of them show OTV2 in the list of "satellites"...wonder if it's called something else

Originally posted by Seagle

Originally posted by tarifa37
We had clear skies above Kent UK last night so I went outside at 10.30pm to do a bit of star gazing immediately I saw an object ( satellite) moving across the sky west to north the object suddenly got very bright then faded. I decided to stick around and see if I could spot any more. I didn't have to wait long this time in the sky to the east came two moving in opposite directions then another moving north to south.I was watching theses with the naked eye but would also use my binoculars. ( the best way to spot them in a large sky). For the next 90 mins I counted thirty satellites ( four in the same part of sky at once) plus four shooting stars one that left a vapour or smoke trail. My question is how is it possible to see so many in such a short space of time and were they all satellites. Most objects were in the south eastern sky.

I was certain that this thread as going to talking about the number of Satellites that were visible in the skies above Sydney Australia tonight. I see them all the time but tonight was without doubt the most I have ever seen in a short space of time. Twice I saw two satelites directly intersect at the same point at the same time (obviously orbiting at different heights). In the first instance one came from the North and one from the south and in the second instance one was travelling NW-SE and the other SW-NE.

Sounds like something similar I saw last year. I saw 4 basically appear in the same part of the sky at the same time then scatter in separate directions. I haven't seen anything like it since.

But to the OPs story.... coincidently last night I also saw more "satellites" than I usually do. Within the first minute of walking outside I saw 3 moving stars in different parts of the sky. I stayed out for 15 more minutes but didn't see anymore.

Also.... the images Zorgon posted with the 1000's of satellites does help prove a point ....but by no means just because you see a moving star does that make it a satellite.

The image makes it seem like anything you see at night is going to be a simple satellite ...because ...well ...look at the picture! how could it not be a satellite? ....sorry but that logic is flawed.

There is 1000's upon 1000's of debris, junk, satellites and other crap orbiting our planet. Now, do we go out at night and see all the 1000's of satellites? No.... we don't.

I suspect that the so called "satellites" that the OP saw in a short amount of time as well as descriptions of other odd witness accounts of satellites are NOT really satellites....

I have no clue what they would be ...but to justify all this with the simple answer of "satellites" seems just too benign for me considering the details of some of these events.

Originally posted by Suspiria
The Delta Aquarid meteor shower and the Perseid meteor shower converge this time of year if that's any help to ya!

Saw four shooting stars last night the last one was the best I have ever seen looking like a firework streaking across the sky and left a smoke trail. It actually made me jump as came out of nowhere.

Originally posted by dplum517
I suspect that the so called "satellites" that the OP saw in a short amount of time as well as descriptions of other odd witness accounts of satellites are NOT really satellites....

You don't have to guess or suspect...download stellarium, enable the satellite option, and you can find the satellite trajectories and see if it matches up with anything. If it looks like a satellite, and it's moving like a satellite, it's probably a satellite, but it doesn't hurt to check it on Stellarium to verify it.

I can't understand the logic of your post that you suspect things people see that look like satellites are NOT really satellites. That makes no sense to me. But as I said, there's no reason to rely on guesses with a program like Stellarium available.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Good advice although they were flying over so often it would have been hard to note the times direction etc whilst still scanning the sky for more of them.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I have used that program and sure... it's helpful but like all other software programs it has flaws. One being that the user is assuming the program accounts for every single satellite in orbit? I don't think so.... us common folk wouldn't have access to a program that accounted for every single satellite from every single country and defense department.... tell me you don't think these sites and programs really show you that??

If it looks like a satellite, and it's moving like a satellite, it's probably a satellite

ummmm I guess so.... but not really. Of course we can see regular satellites from our backyards but I am referring to odd situations that have odd descriptions.

Also..... just because an object doesn't do a 90 degree turn or take off at the speed of light does not mean its not a UFO. There are plenty of accounts of UFOs just floating or flying along not doing some crazy maneuver.

wenever i go night fishing out in the country side with no light polution i can see quite alot every hour so that many dont surprise me

seen two on almost the same path next to each other once and thought id seen me 1st ufo until i found out some orbit like this

was pretty gutted