A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned he’d seen a really bright planet, and that someone had identified it as the space shuttle. Said that he’d watched it for two hours and that it hadn’t moved.
I offered that if it had been orbiting geosynchronously, it wouldn’t have appeared to move. Not that I know if the shuttle does that or not. Or whether it had been visible in the Oregon skies recently.
Then he said that none of the other stars near it moved, either, so I questioned the results of his last UA…
Googled unsuccessfully. Can anyone help? (Not about his UA, but about my other questions…)
Anything not in GEO moves incredibly quickly, which means you normally see a small streak of light moving across the sky. Some satellites like the Iridium constellation have such large panels that they “flare” every so often and become very bright. But such events are very brief.
Satellites in GEO (~36000 km) are stationary with respect to a point on the earth but are so far away I’ve never heard of anyone seeing them with the naked eye.
Likely you saw a planet, either Venus or Jupiter. Check Sky and Telescope for the night sky at a glance.
The shuttle is in low earth orbit so it zips along pretty fast in the sky. It’s only a few hundred miles up while a geosynchronous satellite is around 23,000 miles IIRC. Best times to vieware before morning and after dusk when the sky is darkening but the shuttle is still illuminated by the sun at altitude.
Right now, there are 4 bright planets visible in the evening sky, including Venus, which is often mistaken for something it’s not (an airplane, a UFO, etc.)
I have seen the shuttle and the space station. The can be seen only at twilight when the sky is not so bright and the body is fully illuminated by the sun. They are not visible in broad daylight or in dark night. They move in the sky fairly rapidly and are, therefore clearly distinguishable from celestial bodies. It is impossible to see with the naked eye any satelites in geosynchronous orbit because of the distance.
And I meant to clarify that whatever your friend saw, it wasn’t the ISS - that appears to move overhead quite rapidly. Venus and Jupiter are both very bright at present - I’d say it was 95% certain it was one of those two planets that he/she saw.
I use Starry Night to give me an idea of when and where to look for satellites but I imagine that any of te several alternatives will work as well. If you were determined to figure out what your friend saw, you could download the demo, input the location, time and date of the sighting and have him identify what he saw on screen.
I think it is possible to see geosynchronous satellites under the proper conditions. Once while stargazing in a very dark spot in the wilds of Arizona on a moonless night in the mid '90s a friend and I noticed a faint “blinking” light, off of Orion’s knee if memory serves. It was blinking too much to be a twinkling star and didn’t move at all. We went back out the next night and noticed the same blinking light in the same place. The only real explanation that we could ever come up with for what we saw was that we were seeing a spinning geosynched satellite (perhaps one that had gone on the fritz or maybe a new one that was still being positioned?).
This is a pretty unconvincing argument. You saw something which you didn’t know what it was so it may have been “a spinning geosynched satellite (perhaps one that had gone on the fritz or maybe a new one that was still being positioned?” Are you serious? You expect us to take this seriously? That is your evidence? I suppose considering things like distance to a geosynchronous orbit, size of object, how much light it would reflect, what particular satelite was located in that spot of the sky on that day and time, all those things are too much of a scientific exactitude for you. Forgive me if I find your supposition quite unconvincing. OTOH I once saw an animal which I did not recognize as a cat or a chicken so I think it may have been a baby dinosaur.
The shuttle, ISS, and anything else in low earth orbit can most definitely be seen “in dark night.” In the middle of winter, you can see them until an hour or so after sunset (and likewise an hour before sunrise). An hour after sunset is really dark.
But in the summer, satellites are visible until fairly late in the evening, like 10:30 or 11:00pm. I’d say it’s pretty dark then.
The difference is because in the winter, your hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, so stuff in the skies above you is in the very back part of the shadow. But in the summer at night, the sun is not as far below the horizon when it’s down, so the satellites can stay in the sunlight for a longer time.
Right now, here in Texas, we can see satellites until about 9pm. It would be later farther North.
Everybody says the shuttle and the Space Station move “fast” across the sky. How fast is that? The moon is about half a degree wide, IIRC, so that gives a scale. How long would one of those objects take to move that far?
Damn, sailor. Why don’t you try doing a bit of research * before * being a snide butthead? You can see geosynchronous satellites under certain conditions, and they do flare.
According to this observation report, the period of the flashes is on the order of 3.7 seconds. Now given that nothing in nature is visible to the naked eye, stationary in the sky, AND flashes with a regular period, fiddlestick’s supposition is not unreasonable.
Less than a second. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the shuttle, but my recollection is that it crosses the entire sky in something like 30 seconds to a minute. The shuttle is only a 100 or so miles up, and is moving at around 17,000 mph, so it certainly isn’t the case that you’d look at it for a while and say “Is it my imagination or is that star moving?”
What I mean is that the satelite has to be directly illuminated by the sun which cannot happen when the sun is to low below the horizon but, yes, the sun can be low enough that the sky is dark already.
Regarding geosynchronous satelites I still think that the chances of seeing one randomly are close to zero (although not impossible). I have some experience in star gazing and I am amazed at the places in the sky where people will find Polaris and other bodies. If someone randomly tells me they have seen something unusual I tend to dismiss it. If someone supports their claim with credible supporting data then I take it more seriously. No offense meant to anybody.
The only time I’ve ever seen the Shuttle is upon liftoff. Went to see it once at Cape Canaveral (awesome experience, btw), and the bright rocket tail was also visible from our house in Orlando, even during the day (although it was obviously a lot harder to spot).
Most “UFOs” in the night sky 'round these here parts are planes, since apparently we’re under the flight path of many airlines. We do get a helicopter every once in a while, but only during bad traffic accidents.
And of course, my little brother is convinced that I’m an alien, but I don’t quite think that counts.
