Heavens-Above Forum

If any of you are serious amateur astronomers and you are a member of Heavens-Above forum take a look at a post I made over there . It concerns a space object me and my wife witnessed last night. You might find it very interesting. Also if you live in West Texas and was out observing the night sky last night around 9pm and seen anything unusual let me hear from you .

Celestron wrote in post #17961487
If any of you are serious amateur astronomers and you are a member of Heavens-Above forum take a look at a post I made over there . It concerns a space object me and my wife witnessed last night. You might find it very interesting. Also if you live in West Texas and was out observing the night sky last night around 9pm and seen anything unusual let me hear from you .

should have done a link


let me go searching


Dave

EDIT

OK have signed up
found the forum, but have no idea what section you posted in
please give a link to the specific page

Dave

It's probably way to late to find out now but here's the link Davenn :

http://www.heavens-above.com …x?g=posts&t=145​9#post2109

Top secret stuff??
Conspiracy theories ...

Gush... This has been posted a long time back and I am to see the thread for the very first time????
Can anyone tell me why do we have Astro & Celestial Talk, to hide the material, when entire people who use the astro are only a handful, at any given time, before getting distracted and move to competitor's site or loss interest totally. Personally coming to POTN mostly for participation is astro stuff, I find this division a total failure and distraction as I surely won't see the TALK section at all, despite active participation on photo threads. And if I am an active senior participant of this forum, what the newbie do??!

I am serious to get an answer from any POTN responsible representative.

PLEASE KINDLY UNDERSTAND THAT SEPARATION OF ASTRO PHOTO SHARING AND TALK IS WRONG. NOT WORKING. IS AGAINST THE WELBEING OF POTN. DISTRATION TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY WANT THE INFO & USE THIS SECTION.

That is if site cares to know (And I seriously think at least Pekka does).

P L E A S E - M E R G E - T H E S E - 2 - S E C T I O N S .

And let it all make sense and benefit all.

This division unlike the other section of forum, is not working. It only causes hiding the important information for few who are actually using or research it.

===============


H-A is by far more informative than "Spot the Station" LINK but for a newbie, the simplest always works best so my advise for all who just want to find out ISS only and at the start of search, check the Government own site. BTW I see at least my local forecasts are more accurate by NASA site, though there has been occasions that H-A was better. So I guess they are very complimentary to each other. I like the additional information you get in H-A, the graphic animation of station in real time and most importantly, the fact that only H-A provides you with the brightness information that is a must for me to decide if I like to picture or not as to me, that is the single most important factor in harvesting a good image or waste time.

Anyhow a few links for Dave and all who may want to check it:

Main page Heavens-above > LINK;You have menu to Satellites and events. Spend sometime here to explore each feature. On the right upper page, you have: ISS current location: A very good representation of real time map location of ISS 24/7.

H-A ISS 10 days forecast site > LINK;To see the table, but you need to first Register (Free) and Log in to see the event tailored to your observation site (That is easily changeable, if you move to additional sites).

H-A ISS 3D visualization > LINK; As if you are riding above the ISS, in real time, 24/7!

Main page NASA site: Spot the Station: > LINK; You need to populate: Country/Region/City and hit Go

So Samsen, with all the links you provided and instructions on the sight in all the middle of that were you able to find and give me an answer to my original posting in the H-A forum ??

Ron:

With my low IQ, busy life and hard work, please leave me some time to digest. I have a long list of issues as such but hopefully time will heal or help. And BTW you are the one who usually tell me about space junks! Nevertheless I am quit frequently see the amazing things our becoming more and more popular "Drones" do these days (And nights). But then as they say "What happens in Vegas, remains in Vegas" and guess someone underestimated Texas

samsen wrote in post #18002143
Ron:
Nevertheless I am quit frequently see the amazing things our becoming more and more popular "Drones" do these days (And nights).

I can guarantee you that what me and the wife saw had nothing to do with anything man-made . Man has not been able to get anything to travel that fast except a lazer beam .

Celestron wrote in post #18002160
I can guarantee you that what me and the wife saw had nothing to do with anything man-made . Man has not been able to get anything to travel that fast except a lazer beam .

OK then how about lazer beam reflected from atmospheric moisture, haze etc?

Nope, won't work. Do you remember what a satellite looks likes when traveling overhead and never flaring ? Still has a perfect round shape correct ? Imagine the same thing but slightly smaller than the ISS but larger than a satellite and travel over 90-degs of space in less than 10-secs.... , What object in space do you know of that travels that fast and that distance ?? I do not know any object including any satellite that does that , even the ISS takes over 1-2 mins or more to cross that distance. I know, I have timed the ISS many times. Once it was visible almost 3 mins.

Ron: Because I have been fooled a countless number of times at night, when trying to guess the distance, I do underestant that a lot of time that excess speed is the result of vicinity rather than true speed when one elude to object being in orbit.

Now lets talk of guesstimates and we don't want to be accurate.
Yes 3-5 minutes of ISS travel, as commonly seen by all of us who follows it regularly, interprets at 1/3 to half of over head sky, that is about 30-90 degree so 10 degree or less, per minutes, or 1 degree for 5-6 second is a norm. Now this is for ISS that is about 200 miles up and has ground speed of 17000 mph or 5 miles per sec.

Assuming the object you described is in outer space, close to earth in a similar oribit as ISS, showing 90 degree in 10 sec or 9 degree per second, this is like 45, 50 times the speed of ISS or about 800,000 mile per Hr. This is even 20 times more than speed of a fireball or meteor!

My educational guess/ consideration, assuming both you and your wife saw it at the same time and this excludes a migrine type headache of visual flare etc, then that object was man made and much closer to you than what you would think, due to difficulties of correct distance judgment at night.

I seriously can not believe either in miracles or extra terristorial inteligent life in solar system, or other similar nonsenses. So really fall short of any explanations otherwise.
Have you run it with your nearest neighbors and do you have any naughty neighbor or kids in your vicinity?
The other very rare event could be a successully reaching to earth, distance very small metorite that possibly was less that a gram in weight so no sonic boom or significant imact/earthquick feel.

To give a visual example, here is the real footage from Feb 2013, that famous Russian falling meteorite. But please pay attention to speed ONLY & do not pay any attention to the intensity of metor as it was shoot on many videos from a very close distance and it was much bigger than our presumed meteorite here that has gone unnotice to most other residents.




Now What do you think?

Thanks Samsen for being kind about things and trying to get a logical answer but I have to stand my ground. I've seen too much in my past of the night sky, seen everything I know of even the HST that came over one night like the ISS does but not near as bright. Seen meteorites, comets, ISS , saw the Space Shuttle re-entry one night. Never saw anything like what me and the wife witnessed that night. If I had I would have no reason to post on HA and mention only serious amateur astronomers . I know what I saw.

Celestron wrote in post #18003373
Thanks Samsen for being kind about things and trying to get a logical answer but I have to stand my ground. I've seen too much in my past of the night sky, seen everything I know of even the HST that came over one night like the ISS does but not near as bright. Seen meteorites, comets, ISS , saw the Space Shuttle re-entry one night. Never saw anything like what me and the wife witnessed that night. If I had I would have no reason to post on HA and mention only serious amateur astronomers . I know what I saw.

No. You saw what you saw. If you knew what it was, you would not asked it here or there.

Celestron wrote in post #18003373
Thanks Samsen for being kind about things and trying to get a logical answer but I have to stand my ground. I've seen too much in my past of the night sky, seen everything I know of even the HST that came over one night like the ISS does but not near as bright. Seen meteorites, comets, ISS , saw the Space Shuttle re-entry one night. Never saw anything like what me and the wife witnessed that night. If I had I would have no reason to post on HA and mention only serious amateur astronomers . I know what I saw.

That is why I like you and your posts so much. You are both experienced/logical and smart.

I see that thread in H-A is still without any answer.
Guess they have same problem in management as here!
This sort of events are impossible to be missed by all, except a single observer. Its only if the news surface, that more people will show up to testify and make more and better description to solve it.
Your problem is NOBODY reads or comes to POTN Astro TALK. In fact anything posted in this thread is best considered as NOT being posted at all. I guess a similar story also must be going for the H-A's forum section as most people go there to get the uptodate information and nothing more.
My suggestion is to first copy and post your question in "Cloudynights" > L I N K < were you are most likely to get the right answer and traffic exists.
Also againg copy and paste this thread, under POTH's Astro Photosharing section, where a few who are intrested in astro stuff actually can see and hopefully you get a better response. Of course as moderators hardly ever look at astro section, by the time some one kind enough, delete or return it back to this excile section of the forum, you hopefull have some responds.

Also to point out that I must stay by my ground and what I said, specially the last speculation and theory on my above comment, regarding a small, near earth metero that I firmly believe is the best possibility for your observation. BTW did the speed in video match what you saw?

My last question/Comment: With your experiences, what do you think it was, and please don't rasie that "If I know it, I would not ask it" number for me

Cheers.

Samsen the video you posted is a meteorite falling into our atmosphere and burning up . What i saw never came into our atmosphere which is the reason i compared it to the ISS traveling at about 10 times faster . Not as fast as that Fireball in the video but alot faster than the ISS is capable of doing . Smaller than the ISS slightly . You know how satellites look when they come over at night and they do not flare ? See how they just have a constant same brightness just enough to see them good with the naked eye ? Picture this in your mind of seeing a satellite 5 times larger than normal and traveling 5-10 times faster than a normal satellite and slightly brighter but not quite as bright as the ISS at max flare traveling in about the same altitude as the ISS and disappearing back into earths shadow the way the ISS does . If you can try picturing that in your mind then you can imaging what me and the wife saw that night .

samsen wrote in post #18003632
I see that thread in H-A is still without any answer.
Guess they have same problem in management as here!
This sort of events are impossible to be missed by all, except a single observer. Its only if the news surface, that more people will show up to testify and make more and better description to solve it.
Your problem is NOBODY reads or comes to POTN Astro TALK. In fact anything posted in this thread is best considered as NOT being posted at all. I guess a similar story also must be going for the H-A's forum section as most people go there to get the uptodate information and nothing more.
My suggestion is to first copy and post your question in "Cloudynights" > L I N K < were you are most likely to get the right answer and traffic exists.
Also againg copy and paste this thread, under POTH's Astro Photosharing section, where a few who are intrested in astro stuff actually can see and hopefully you get a better response. Of course as moderators hardly ever look at astro section, by the time some one kind enough, delete or return it back to this excile section of the forum, you hopefull have some responds.

Come on, really? If you want replies, post text instead of links to other sites. About who reads this forum: you can not speak on behalf of others.

If you want to get more audience, post the text with some images in the share forum.

To switch between talk and share very easily, check the underlined links seen on top of each index page:

Astronomy & Celestial
FORUMS ➔ Photo Sharing & Visual Enjoyment
Stars, galaxies, clouds, Auroras, Klaatu.... To talk about this subject, go to discussion forum Astronomy & Celestial Talk.

Astronomy & Celestial Talk
FORUMS ➔ Photography Talk by Genre
Astronomy and celestial photography tips, gear, methods, places, time and space.. To share photos on this subject, go to photo sharing forum Astronomy & Celestial.

I am committed to make improvements to POTN and all kinds of plans and designs are in the works. I appreciate all suggestions and feedback, but pushing it down my throat does not make it happen. Merging talk and share forums would cause a mess, it would need some way to filter photo sharing threads from discussion threads to make it even slightly successful a merge. So that is not a priority feature at the moment.