Quote:
Originally Posted by mickkk
I remember looking at a patch of sky to the east, about 80 degrees up one winter about 3am. I noticed a repeating flash of white light, 5 flashes in 5 seconds or so, a pause of 20 seconds and the same again for about 20 repetitions of this cycle. Someones solar panels I guess very high up and moving kinda slow, away from me probably, but I couldnt find anything on the database for the time. I was happy as I was just staring without any artificial lights for a couple of hours to see what I could see.
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Hi Mick,
What you observed was very likely a satellite in a geosynchronous
orbit. These are at an altitude of 35,786 km above the surface of the
Earth and it is not uncommon to see them blink like a lighthouse in
the way you describe as the sun reflects off their surfaces if they have
a spin.
Being in such a high orbit, they can remain out of the Earth's eclipsing
shadow even at 3am as you observed.
They are fascinating to look at through a telescope. You will see the
background stars moving by and the satellite in a relatively fixed position
but it can create the illusion that it is the other way around.
As the geostationary satellites are parked along the celestial equator,
it is a good place to look for them, but you need to account for parallax.