posted on Mar, 16 2007 @ 09:06 PM
At 10pm on 3/15, I was observing the stars so that I could enter an observation for the Globe at Night project. The thought crossed my mind that venus
was in the wrong place in the sky. Venus was actually in the SW sky near the horizon.
In the west was a very bright object of about the same magnitude as venus. IT was a yellow-greenish color and seemed like it had a dark spot in the
center. I started to watch it as I figured it must be the IIS. It was indeed moving, from west to SSE. After a couple of seconds it starts fading
away. I saw it move about 30 degrees before it vanished. I am not sure how it first appeared. It caught my attention when it became very bright. It
was about 25 degrees above the horizon.
Normally any object I see moving in the night sky can be explained. I went to heavens-above and checked for space objects. There were none listed for
that time of night. No IIS, Hubble, Iridium, space junk.
It was 2 1/2 hours after sunset. I assume something in earth orbit could still get lit up by sun light at that time. I suppose the bottom of the
object could have been illuminated by the sun and as it moved eastly it lost sunlight and faded away.
I thought the only object that bright is the IIS. Could it have been space junk or was it something else?