Did I see the Space Shuttle's engines last night?

Factual Questions
1

Help me identify this transiently bright light I saw in the sky, if you please.

The Mrs. and I were out in the hot tub last night about 9:15 PM central time, and I was looking to the east, at the stars over Lake Michigan.

Suddenly, a very, very bright ‘star’ caught my eye. It certainly had not been there seconds earlier, not at that brightness level. It outshone ever other star in the sky, and was certainly brighter than I’d ever noted Venus to be in the past.

And it was moving, in an ESE direction.

The flare died out after maybe 4 or 5 seconds, leaving a very faint moving ‘star’ which continued to track slowly and steadily in an ESE direction, where it remained visible for perhaps another 20-30 seconds before I could no longer see it.

It was definitely not a Coast Guard helicopter, it was far too high, with too smooth of a track.

It might have been an aircraft, but I saw no other navigation lights, nor could I see a contrail, which is often visible even at night.

It didn’t look like any shooting stars I’ve often seen, in that it didn’t break up, and it faded away quite slowly, rather than burning brightly then vanishing.

It could have been some other type of satellite, I suppose. But I’m hard-pressed to explain why it would be so bright so briefly.

My only explanation was that I saw the Space Shuttle, and observed it doing an engine burn for a brief period. Reasonable? True?

Astro-dopers? Can you solve this for me?

2

Probably an iridium flare. You can Google for places to enter your lat, long and time to confirm.

I saw one (probably, but never confirmed it) once. It was pretty cool.

3

This site has lots of stargazing info, but also tracks the ISS, shuttle and Iridium flares. It may help you figure out what was there.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

4

Yeah, sounds like an iridium flare. I don’t think the shuttle firing it’s OMS engines would make it noticeably brighter to someone on the ground.

5

I tried plugging in Chicago’s Lat and Long, but the times didn’t match. I think these predictions are pretty localized, so maybe change the URL to your position. Or you can set it from the map here.

6

Thanks, guys, that was quite educational!

Turns out it was an iridium flare from Satellite Iridium 37. Magnitude -4! It matched my time and location exactly.

That site, http://www.heavens-above.com/, should prove quite useful in the future.

7

Definitely an Iridium flare. Go here:

http://www.heavens-above.com

And you can find out which one it was if you know your location and the exact time. It will also give you predictions so you can see others, find out they look exactly like what you saw then, and confirm that explanation.

ETA I see someone else gave the same site.

8

Very localized. If you are a mere 10 miles east or west of the location you entered, it would be considerably dimmer. 20 miles and you wouldn’t see it at all.

9

Just to add another data point. The shuttle’s main engines burn oxygen and hydrogen (not the solid fuel of the boosters on take-off). The flame from the shuttle engines is a faint blue flame and unlikely to be visible from so far away.

See picture here

10

And just to add a datum that ought to really wrap up this thread and let it sink, in orbit the main engines on the Shuttle are out of gas! The shuttle then uses the smaller OMS engines (located on either side of the vertical stabilizer) and those use hypergolic fuels. If you’ve ever seen one of this type of engine fire, say in a lunar lift-off, there is just about nothing to see.

And I just loves me a good Iridium flare. I’m off to check for schedule in my location!