Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Meteor?
Disgruntled was in the Sainsbury East Filton branch car park this evening when he noticed an orange ball in the sky moving from south to north. He can best describe it as looking like the same orange glow you sometimes see when a low evening sun reflects off an aircraft, creating an orange moving flash. Except that at 7:25 pm this evening it was dark and cloudless. The ball moved over the MoD Abbeywood area, gradually fading until it disappeared completely when almost directly overhead and to the east of the supermarket. It wasn't an aircraft, as they have flashing warning lights on them - Disgruntled can only assume that it was a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. Did anyone else see it?
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Could have been the International Space Station.
ReplyDeleteDon't think so - http://www.heavens-above.com/allpass1sat.asp?lat=53.33087&lng=-2.8125&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=GMT&satid=25544&Date=40473&Mag= indicates and http://www.heavens-above.com/gtrack.asp?lat=53.33087&lng=-2.8125&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=GMT&Date=40478.827106271&satid=25544 indicate that the
ReplyDeleteISS was visible at 20:48 GMT (so 21:48 BST), and went from SW to E. Perhaps another satellite?
[url]http://www.heavens-above.com/allsats.asp?lat=53.33087&lng=-2.8125&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=GMT&Date=40478.7291666667&Mag=3.5[/url]
ReplyDeleteHelios 1B would fit - went from SSE to NNW at around the time, but the magnitude of brightness makes it look as though it wouldn't be bright enough. Normally satellites are a moving dot of light across the sky, whereas this was definitely more of a ball of light.