Flare?

[NickontheCoast]

SO there I am observing and see a flare shaped object about where M5 should be....

It's bird shaped and is shaped as if it is heading away from a bright object..which when I look closer is moving - satellite?

The object and its flare companion continued to move through the western sky ascending west to north - visible to the naked eye.

Any pics I have seen of iridium flares give them a torpedo shape - this flare was very spread out but certainly attached to the other bright object.

An iridium fare or similar??

[coldspace]

Originally Posted by NickontheCoast

SO there I am observing and see a flare shaped object about where M5 should be....

It's bird shaped and is shaped as if it is heading away from a bright object..which when I look closer is moving - satellite?

The object and its flare companion continued to move through the western sky ascending west to north - visible to the naked eye.

Any pics I have seen of iridium flares give them a torpedo shape - this flare was very spread out but certainly attached to the other bright object.

An iridium fare or similar??

It was the plume from a satelite thruster making its correction in orbit. Good spotting. We saw it at Astrofest last night naked eye, in the binoculars it was excellent and in Jonathans 20 icnh SDM was a sight I wil never forget. The plume was a perfect thrust shape and you could see the sat speeding away. Was so clear and the high point for many of us last night at Astrofest.

[NickontheCoast]

That makes sense now given the shape of the plume, which when I first spotted it was very defined - after a while it became less defined but retained much of its shape. This plume was so cool it stopped poor ol' Jupiter getting a good looking at! It was very clear naked eye and yes very nice and defined through the 8" dob. Tks for the note .. it was certainly my high point on Saturday night!

[Suzy]

Wow! You guys are really lucky to have spotted this - I am so envious.

[GrahamL]

Pity you couldn't of made to astrofest Nick, skys around home would of
been plenty dark enough to the west though , well spotted.

How lucky was that , Ron wandering out of the dark saying look theres something in the sky at the head of scorpious to a bunch of people who happened to be standing beside 20 and 30 inch dobs.

astronomy sure can throw up the unexpected at times and thats one you couldn't ever forget

[coldspace]

Hey mate, I did some searching and I recon you were seeing this Military satelite lifting off and would have placed it in the sky around the same time.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...ch-100814.html

Matt.

[Zubenel (Wes)]

The description from the article describes what we saw through my 10" , Ron's 16" and Dennis's 18" Dobs. Terry Cuttle showed us the image he took showing the "nebula" and the 2 satellites forward of the "Coma".
Twas an awesome sight from the Visual Observing field at Astrofest.
Ronarto from THE SAS emailed The Courier Mail with an article. Did any one see it published????
Cheers Zub

[AstroTourist (Terry)]

I have just placed an image in General chat.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=64800

Regards,
Terry