Today at 17:26 (Eastern Daylight saving time) in Canberra I spotted a very bright star like object next to the moon heading north slowly. It was at least mag -8 or brighter. I grabbed the 80mm refractor and had a look in between cloud. It seemed to have two purple/blue rectangles either side of a darker middle section. Hard to get a good look on a moving object with partial cloud moving in the area.
Can anyone please confirm WHAT I actually saw? It was pretty amazing in daylight to see something so bright.
Just used Solar Walk on the iPhone to see what was around at the time and if what you saw was East of the Moon it was most likely SEASAT as it was the only major Sat in the area at the time.
Well acording to Solar Walk anyway.
Two nights ago (4th Oct) at about 8pm I was outside at the Barby and looked up to see an extraordinarily bright satellite passing the moon. It was right next to the moon, and VERY bright, I'd estimate Mag -6.
Just from the size and speed it had to have been the ISS.
As it faded out to the NE, I glanced NW, and there was the unmistakable view of HST coming across at about Mag 0.
After dinner I checked Heavens-above and found that it was indeed those two satellites, but they reported the magnitudes as being -3.4 for the ISS, and 1.6 for HST.
These numbers were just plain wrong. The ISS was the brightest I have ever seen it, definitely well above -5, and more likely -6 to -6.5
Now back to your sighting. If your time is correct, it wasn't ISS as it was on the other side of the world at that time. Passes over Canberra were at 14:23, 19:25, and 21:00. None of these passes was at a decent elevation either.
Are you sure you have the time right Grant? 17:26 being 5:26PM and still daylight?
Saw an anomalous (according to the Heavens above website) ISS pass earlier this week.
Heavens above indicated it would wink in shadow at 20deg or so in the East. It continued FAR beyond East (heading north) it didnt wink at 20deg. I lost it in trees at closer to 10deg up and 15deg from north.
Maybe this is common?
Once I get a visual on stuff im too busy looking up thinking about how cool it is to be overly bothered with the accuracy of predications
This one was obviously well out of the ball park.
Had another semi experienced (visual) Sat observer with me and he called the error before I did.
same here! last night walking home from work just before 7:30pm the brightness stopped me in my tracks, much brighter than venus at its best, straight over the zenith,close to the moon travelling north easterly
what was it?
pat
) have been Iridium flares.
