Identifying Fast Traveling Objects

[scottdmann]

I was observing the sky between Brisbane 10:05-10:14PM 14th June 2009 and saw two events that I'm having trouble interpreting. I was using 10x50 binoculars at the time.

1) Looking south, a grey/brown trail went across my field of view in a fraction of a second.

2) Looking North-West between Spica and Arcturus I watched a flashing white object (quite bright at first then dimming) over a 5 minute period. It blinked once every 10 seconds.

I'd value the opinions of IIS members as to what these may be.
Also what characteristics of meteors, satellites or other man-made objects can aid in determining views of rapid movements in the sky.

Thanks.

[astroron]

Hi Scott, welcome to iceinspace:thumbsup:
Number one was probably a Meteor:)
Number two was probably a rotating satellite, which if you enjoy looking at the night sky you will see many over the coming years.:)
Satellites usualy travel at a sedate pace across the sky, depending on how high they are, the higher they are the seemingly slower they go.
Meteors come in all shades, such as short bright flashes, bright flairs with trails,and all variations in between.
I hope this helps.
Cheers

[Dennis]

Hi Scott

Welcome to Ice In Space.

I had a look in my planetarium program, Starry Night Pro 6 and set the date and time to that in your post (I live in Brisbane) and ran the simulation forwards and backwards ½ hour either side and no satellites came up in that time window for that estimated position.

Cheers

Dennis

[acropolite]

I've seen exactly the same flashing, quite bright, then vanished, as you would expect a Satellite to do. It was much brighter than you would expect a high altitude plane to be and travelling about the speed of a satellite. As you have done Dennis, I did a search and found nothing.

From memory the object was travelling roughly NW-SE and around the zenith when it dimmed and disappeared.

[jjjnettie]

:)But the military don't usually let on where their satellites are at any particular moment. Plus there's the fact that there are many hundreds of disused satellites circling our planet.

Welcome to IIS Scott.:D

[mswhin63]

Rotating Satelittes are not usually inserted into programs unless they have some value. I have seen 2 flashing lights fading away as well. There is a fairly brief write-up on satelittes that launch all wrong and left in orbit spinning out of control. The reflective parts of the satelitte are what you see as it spins on an axis momentary catching the sun and reflecting it down to your view. They fade before they eventually get blocked by the earth from the sun.

They are usually left there unless they pose any danger to other satelitte. If so they are destroyed.

[scottdmann]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone. Phil, you describe exactly the same experience I had. What was puzzling to me was the regularity of the blinking, every 10 seconds, quite bright.

[astroron]

Scott, That is just the spin rate when the solar panels catch the sun.
As I have mentioned on other post on this subject, you will some times see minor flashes if you use a telescope or a good pair of bino's:thumbsup:
Cheers

[scottdmann]

Thanks Ron, case closed.:)