Google has failed me so I thought I turn to the fine folks of the SDMB to see if anyone has an idea about what I saw in the night sky last weekend.
While camping in southern Ontario for the weekend, two friends and I noticed a orange ‘star’ that was significantly brighter than any others that were visible at the time. We remarked on it, assumed that it was a planet and carried on with our conversation. We kept an eye on it as we talked however, and after 5 minutes or so noticed that it had shifted in color from orange to green. Then over the next 60 seconds or so it change to blue and eventually winked out.
This was Saturday night (May 24), probably around 10:30 pm. The object in question was roughly 35-40 degrees up from the horizon in the southern sky. It was most definitely stationary though, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t any sort of aircraft.
Any ideas? It’s been nagging at me ever since we got back from the trip…
Not a cloud in the sky that night. If it had been lower in the sky I would have wondered if it was a planet that had sunk low enough to obscured by the atmosphere, but it was pretty high up and stayed there while we saw it.
Could have been southwest-ish, but not by much. It was hard to tell direction for sure because we were out in the woods, but the park is on the Lake Huron shore and that shore was pretty well directly right of us as we watched.
Looking at the position of the Pinery Provincial Park against Lake Huron, I’ll bet you were looking exactly due southwest, so that’s something to keep in mind as you investigate.
What I saw a few years back was directly southwest as well.
Mars was very close to the spot you’re describing. And, your initial description of the colour (“orange”) would do well to describe Mars. Maybe it went behind a cloud as Twoflower said.
Although further east from where you were describing, Antares might also fit the bill. Over the years, I’ve been impressed with its dynamic colour changes, especially when it’s low over the horizon as it would have been at 10:30 PM last week.
You should consider DL’ing Stellarium. Free and fun (and helpful). It’s what I used to guess what you were looking at.
Thanks for the info and the recommendation, I’ll check out Stellarium. I had my data turned off on my phone because I was in Canada, otherwise I would’ve pulled up Google Sky Maps.
It was probably a sky lantern (aka Chinese Balloon Lantern). The first time I saw one, it was about 1/2 mile away. I had to get out my telescope to ascertain what it was. They have a life expectancy of about 10 minutes. I’m surprised they are not a fire hazard.
Stars do this, it’s called “twinkling”. I’m not being facetious… the first time I noticed it, I thought I’d spotted some crazy oddball thing, a star that was red, then blue, then yellow. I sighted it in the telescope, and appeared just as it did to the naked eye. Then I noticed that many bright stars do the same thing, especially close to the horizon. It’s just twinkling, the effect of starlight filtering through air of different densities in the atmosphere.