Strange Object

[Reemul]

Hello

My wife & I were on the back patio in far western Brisbane on Wednesday 29-2 night 11-11:30pm looking up and spotted an odd flashing object. It was a bit left and higher than Mars. We spotted it because of it's flashing (otherwise not visible to naked eye). The flashing was not uniform, being 7-9 seconds apart (not a plane). It was very slow moving. I grabbed my 20x80's. It took 20 seconds to cross my field of view, so very slow. It was "mostly" not visible till it flashed, but through the bino's it would brighten and then flash. After watching it travel about 10 degrees - heading NE - it stopped flashing and we were unable to find it again. I looked up stellarium, and it show no satellites in that vicinity at that time, except for the ISS (but it travels much much faster - I tracked it last night as a test). No alcohol involved either :)
Im guessing the flashes were reflections as the object rolled.
So any ideas?
Anyone know a satellite data base sites to check?
(I tried "heavens above" but I couldn't work it out.)
Thanks
PS No loss of time by either of us too. :p

[FlashDrive]

Interesting observation ... have another look tonight .. see if it appears again.

errrr ..!!! ' min min ' light ... nah .. not likely. :rolleyes:

Flash :whistle:

[jenchris]

Reflections of what? - at 11.30 it would be in the Earth's shadow.

[NorthernLight]

I have seen the same phenomena a week ago from Auckland moving west to north with an irregular brightening (blinking pattern) pattern. but I think it was near Jupiter not Mars.

[Bosi72]

Most likely I'm wrong but I noticed an object between clouds not visible by naked eyes around 5:15 pm in area around Jupiter. I used 10x50 binoculars and object was either steady or moving slowly. At the time when I assembled the telescope in backyard, it was too late - the sky was covered with clouds.

So it was probably the Jupiter :)

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

Sounds like it's an out of commission satellite. Tumbling in orbit. It's solar array is catching the sun, blinking the reflected light. It must be in a very high orbit to do so at that time of night.

Or it could be Nibiru. ;)
One of the residents, flashing us a warning.

[ballaratdragons]

You stole my answer JJ :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

If you want to SEE 13,000 satellites in real time and find out what is in your area, check here: http://www.gearthblog.com/satellites.html :thumbsup:

Zoom into your location and see what is above you at any time :)

It is sooooooo accurate. I check it's accuracy regularly and it is spot on.
I see the satellite about to travel over me in the the map, then I go outside and watch it go by :)

But apart from all these 13,000 satellites there is also a few thousands pieces of space junk, dead satellites, and extra-terrestrial flotsam everywhere.

As far as what you describe, I have seen this phenomenon often. Mine has always been a Geo-Stationary satellite that never seems to move, but if you watch it flash for long enough (hours) you can see that it does move with Earth, not the stars.

[gary]

Hi Reemul,

At that late hour at that part of the sky, extremely likely to be a geosynchronous
satellite or an upper stage booster associated with same.

Being in such high orbits, these objects are still bathed in sunlight even late
at night. From here in Australia, there are a very large number of them
along the band in the sky in which they are parked.

An observing colleague and I have observed them ourselves on numerous
occasions and we have see them brighten and dim like a lighthouse in
the way you describe as they tumble.

When you throw, say, 20" of aperture at them you can sometimes detect
fainter brightening of some facets of the object as it rotates that you would
not normally see naked eye.

Were you sure it was moving in an Az/Alt sense? Through magnification such
as binoculars or a telescope, one can get the illusion that a geosynchronous
object is moving as the Earth rotates and the background stars appear to
move. On a telescope with a drive, you can turn the drive off and the satellite
will just stay steady in the FOV as the stars drift across the field.

As the sun, satellite, viewer angle slowly changes, the object will
appear to fade over time despite the fact that it is at the same azimuth and altitude
with respect the observer.

[Reemul]

Hello
That satellite website is eye-opening. No wonder they mothballed the shuttle - it couldn't get up there because of the traffic.

Anyone know of a similar satellite site that has time adjustment to go backward?

Jupiter was well and truely gone for us by then, and Mars red/orange was easy to spot.
The object was definitely moving. We had been watching for meteors for 5-10 mins, when it appeared from behind a tree. The 10mins or so we were watching it travelled about a hand span (5-10 degrees) at arms length. We had the tree to give us a relative movement fix.

We haven't had many clear nights is Brissy in the last week to check again.

I had to wikipedia "Nibiru" ... :screwy:

Space debris...interesting... thanks for the feedback! :thumbsup: