Did i see a Supernova?

I was sitting in my backyard chatting on the phone when i suddenly saw a star go from fairly dim (in a city so stars are not very bright) turn very bright and glow, as bright as Venus appears i'd say. It was glowing for about 2-3 seconds then it faded out and became dim again. Using Google Sky i tracked down the location, and then after a lot of google, i think i found out what star it was.

I believe it was Eta Serpentis, in the Constellation Serpens Cauda.

This might not be 100% accurate but whatever i saw was in this immediate vicinity.

It was not a comet, meteor, plane, or UFO. The star was there, turned bright as heck then dulled back out and remained there.

I Would estimate this occurred around "Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 06:30:00 UTC" or "Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 11:30:00 PM PST (my time)"

Any ideas??

reply to post by tpsreporter


Sorry I think its just a change in densities in the layers of gas in our atmosphere.

reply to post by tpsreporter


If it was a Supernova it wouldn't just be there for a couple of seconds apart from that 1000's of amateurs look for these things all the time and it would have been reported.

reply to post by tpsreporter


We can't really observe a super nova as an explosion in the traditional sense, here on Earth, since we are so far away from any non-lethal super nova.

reply to post by tpsreporter


Someone else posted something similar. Due to the spelling, that was nice and easy to find!

Time might be off..

Either way, it is unlikely a super nova as those take place over a larger space of time, due to the scale of what is actually happening. Thought the two posts were intriguing nonetheless.

Originally posted by tpsreporter
It was glowing for about 2-3 seconds then it faded out and became dim again.

Supernova dont do that so quickly.
Some satellites can do this though - as they tumble randomly they can go from invisible to very bright and back to invisible again.

Perhaps the most famous of these would be the Iridium satellites. As they move, certain orientations can have the sun reflect off the door sized antenna... for a few seconds only.

So... if there's any chance at all that this "star" was moving slightly in those seconds, go to heavens-above, and (given your location) it can show you times for Iridium "flare"s.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by tpsreporter
It was glowing for about 2-3 seconds then it faded out and became dim again.

Supernova dont do that so quickly.
Some satellites can do this though - as they tumble randomly they can go from invisible to very bright and back to invisible again.

Perhaps the most famous of these would be the Iridium satellites. As they move, certain orientations can have the sun reflect off the door sized antenna... for a few seconds only.

So... if there's any chance at all that this "star" was moving slightly in those seconds, go to heavens-above, and (given your location) it can show you times for Iridium "flare"s.

edit on 23-5-2012 by alfa1 because: (no reason given)

Seems like a logical possibility.

I remember the first time I saw the ISS fly overhead. I was out walking my dog shortly before sunrise when I seen exactly what the op described, only it was moving quite noticeably, hauling ass actually.

It just looked like a dim star on the move until it was almost directly overhead when it became as bright as venus for 5-10 seconds. I didn't know wtf I saw until I was told to check ISS sighting opportunities. Sure enough it was passing right over my city at that time. I figure it became so bright because at the right angle in the sky, it was able to reflect the sunlight from below the horizon.

reply to post by tpsreporter


I'm thinking satellite as well.
Satellite flares are a great deal of degrees more common and behave very similar to what you describe.

A supernova event would last substantially longer, perhaps days and weeks of heightened increase of brightness magnitude.

Well i have seen satellites before and I do know what they look like. This was not a satellite.

The object i saw did not move, i watched it for at least 40 minutes after the "event" and it remained in the same position within this constellation. Its only movement the movement of the entire sky due to our rotation. This was in the exact location of Eta Serpentis.

The only way what i saw was a satellite was if it was a Geosynchronous Satellite. However, that would have been a lot dimmer if it was simply reflecting the sun from 22,000 miles away. Also it would mean that this Geosynchronous Satellite is sitting right in front of Eta Serpentis.

As for a change in the density in the atmosphere, would it really cause it to get so bright? I mean we're talking several degrees of magnitude. I do know stars twinkle because of changes in air density but i've never seen them go from dim to extremely bright and back. But this is a possibility.



I have searched this online, over and over again people insist stars don't do this, that i saw anything from an airplane (wasn't) to a moving satellite (also wasn't). Those do not account for what i described in the OP.

Changes in Air Density seem to be the only explanation that can possibly fit, but i still find it strange that after all the many years of watching the sky i have never seen anything like this, and having seen the ISS, satellites, planets, twinkling stars, meteors, air planes, failed missile launches, successful missile launches, the northern lights and on and on, none of them have ever looked like this.

I think regardless of what it was, im still glad to have seen something so uncommon then.

reply to post by tpsreporter


It's extremely unlikely to have actually been a star doing that. A satellite could have passed close to the star, too close for your eye to differentiate during the flare. A meteor heading right towards you could have also produced a flare of light without appearing to move and while being too close to the star for you to resolve them by eye, though those are also quite rare.

books.google.com/books?id=kllBAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=motionless+meteor&source=bl&ots=qkHfUJ_kEe&sig=_74cY3td0nRo95L0kF17TZHzKjI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KB m9T6_NHY6dgQfv9MGQDw&ved=0CK4BEOgBMAA#v=onepage&q=motionless%20meteor&f=false

Given that the description as given describes an unlikely story though, unlikely explanations are warranted I would say. The above two are more likely than anything else I can think of aside from a rare atmospheric event of some sort.