Fixed Disappearing bright stars?

reply to post by StealthKix


hi, ihave seen this too on the same day. but the timing may differ because i belong to india and isaw it at night around 9pm. I was simply gazing at the sky with naked eyes.my luck or not i don't know but i was gazing at two particular stars at the moment. among those two one suddenly started moving and within a span of 2 seconds or so it moved towards the other(they appeared too close may an 10cm apart as i watched it from ground)and disappeared. i was in a shock at first but felt lucky to see such a rare sight. i never saw anything like that till now.i googled to know if anyone had such experience on that night and found that u posted it here.i wanted to post this long back but i had my problems not to but anyways here i am posting it now. thank you.

Originally posted by Freezer
It's called averted vision.

Thank you very much for that info, I just thought it was me lol.

Anyways I have also seen some strange things in the night sky which I myself cannot explain. 1 of which brought me to this thread in the first place, fixed disappearing stars.

I was outside one night smoking and looking at the stars as I often do. I usually scan the visible sky to see if I can spot something out of the ordinary and I have seen a few different things. I live in Minnesota and my geography is such that I can only see about half of the night sky with a bluff and trees blocking pretty much the whole western sky.

Anyways, I was just looking at the different stars to see if I could recognize any constellations, looking generally south and almost straight up, I spotted a small cluster of about 3 stars. After a few seconds, 1 of them just faded away, not in a blink or a drawn out thing but fairly rapidly I'd guess.

My first thought was UFO, but after reading this thread, sandri_90's post...

Also, there is the Demon Star, Algol (in Perseus). It`s called the demon star because it was a myth about it being the eye of the devil as it disapears every two days. This happens because it`s actually a three-star system and it`s being eclipsed by the dimmer Beta Persei B.

seems like it might be what I saw happen because I haven't seen this "star" since. IDK, what do you guys think?

I realize that your post was made in May of 2010 but I have just had this same type of sighting for the last two nights. I spend a lot of time 'night sky watching' looking for satellites and meteors. I've seen the space junk or satellites that rotate and flash reflected light. Usually these objects appear, disappear and then reappear in a pattern as they cross over in the sky. These objects or lights seemed different. Both nights it was at relatively the same time and in about the same area of the sky. The light faded in and got very bright, brighter than the ISS and then just faded to nothing. That's not so strange as I've seen this before although maybe not so bright. What seemed strange to me is as I waited and kept watching they never appeared again. Also, that it happened both nights at about the same time and same area of the sky.
I'll keep watching and report any new developments. I'm just glad that I'm not the only one seeing things like this.

What can happen is that when an observer looks at a star, directly at the star, the brightness will decrease. Then when you look slightly away from it, the brightness increases. This is just to do with how the eye works, the central region is simply less sensitive than the outer. It is a similar effect (thought not in brightness) to peripheral vision, in which you can spot rapid movements and react to it, and then when you actually look at or try and see the object that moved, you do not see it.

a reply to: bmanabarry

Like this?
www.youtube.com...

That was pretty cool

I have been watching the Old Faithful Web Cam and have noticed a blinking star around 7:15 am Eastern, 5:15 am mountain time. This is so bright and flickering in the sky and it descends a little to the right around 8:30 Eastern, 6:30 mountain but you can still see it as daylight comes. Watch the camera around the time you are speaking of and see if you can see what you are viewing in the sky. This would be Northwest of your position I believe.
Blinker is at top left near Yellowstone logo and still does not reflect the blinking that can be seen on the camera.
Yesterday I saw the whole area illuminate yet it was dark but my screen capture does not reflect what happened it is too pixilated when I copy to paint. It was pretty cool.

it probably happens more often than we realize