The sky last night

I let the dog out on the back garden last night, looked up to watch a plane that had taken off from the airport some 12 miles away from where we live.

While watching the plane which was in the west sky, I noticed what I considered to be a really bright star. After a couple of seconds I noticed that it was actually moving. Probably as fast as a plane, or maybe a bit slower (I'm not too good with speeds) It quietly moved right across the sky. Once the noise of the first plane had died out I noticed that the star like light had no noise what so ever.

It travelled in a straight line from the west to the east of the sky, and I think I watched it for around 1-2 minutes in total.

I live in the east Midlands UK, and the time was around 12-15am. It looked just like that really bright star(planet) that is in the south east sky at night, I'm pretty certain it wasn't a plane. It didn't have any flashing lights, and the brightness stayed the same all the way across the sky. I have had a search around to see if it was the ISS (and I don't think it was) But I was wondering if it may have been some other satellite?

Any idea's would be appreciated.

Hi ceekay. Check out the HeavensAbove site. I have the page set for the UK, scroll down to the string search box and enter your town/city. It could have been any number of things, but this site will help you pinpoint what you saw.

I am in the states, so I'm not familiar with the UK. I did a search on the HA site for Midland, UK and there was a visible pass of the ISS @ 12:16 am from the west to the east. I think that is what you saw. But like I said I'm not sure if I entered yout area correctly. There were actually several visible passes.

Hope this helps.

Rush

Thanks for your reply.

The ISS would make sense, when I checked it out earlier though the only dates and times I could find were for June. These stated that the ISS wouldn't be back over the UK for some time, so I assumed it couldn't have been that.

I will check out the site and see what it says.

Thanks for your help.

Julie.

Edited to ask: what is the HA site?

[edit on 20-7-2008 by ceekay]

Hi Julie. I'm sorry, HA refers to the Heavens Above website that I linked. It's a great site, if you need any help navigating thru it just let me know. It gives you visible pass details for many things, the ISS, hubble, genisis, iridium flares, and all kinds of other satellites.

This thread may be helpful as well. You may be able to catch it two or three times in one night.

Rush

Hi,

After going to Heavens Above, I realised I'm already registered with them, but could never figure out what I was looking for on there.

I have logged in and after sussing out how to work the site, checked the details of the ISS last night, and that was definitely what I saw. What a strange and quite creepy thing to watch! I actually kept thinking to myself, "what if I go in home and I'm an hours worth of time missing!"

Then I got myself in check and started to wonder if it was the ISS... and it was, I would be looking out again tonight, but guess what?... It's cloudy, which is a really common occurrence here, lol.

Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated.

Julie.

Hey Julie. Glad to help. You could probably go out on any given night and see a number of orbiting objects. If you get a chance to check out the ISS when it is orbiting with the space shuttle do so. It's like two very bright stars chasing each other. Quite cool.

Rush

Hi check this out...
20th July at 00:15 for 5 mins moving WSW to E, sounds like it to me.
(I put in your city as northhampton i guess thats around the right area?)

spaceflight.nasa.gov...

I was in the countyside on the east anglian coast and saw exactly the same 3 times over the weekend, each time moving in the same direction, and each time just a bright star like object. was defiantly not a plane, but had trouble convincing myself it really was a satellite as it was so much brighter than other satellites I've seen!