orange

Hi All, about 3:50 am I observed a large orange "star" I watched it for a few moments, it was directly south and about a third of the way up from the horizon, it was very bright about as bright or slightly brighter than Sirius and stationary. I looked away to open my star atlas to see if I could identify it and looked back about 2 seconds later and it was gone!
Any ideas?
Bill H.

Airplane heading straight for you?

Have seen this quite a few times in Belgium.

Hi Bill

Last Night i saw something like that aswell.Its was really bright and lasted roughly six seconds in intense brightness until it faded away to nothing. It appeared at 1.10am and was going through Serpens Caput in a south-east to north west direction. It was bright yellow/ orange in colour. i think it was an Iridum Flare but im waiting for someone to confirm it. Then again it could have been a fire ball.

Kevin Black

Interesting. Both of you seem to have seen quite an event!

Kevin, yours does sound like an Iridium flare (just in case, check www.heavens-above.com for a list of flares).

Bill, I remember seeing such 'events' when I was living in Maynooth. Bart may confirm, but sometimes the airplanes from Dublin Airport do seem like they are a stationary bright star for probably 10 to 20 seconds as they take off. Of course, its an optical illusion, and sometimes, all of a sudden, the plane would rear up and fly overhead! Othertimes, with a quick change in flight path, it changes course (which may appear like the 'sudden' disappearance when you looked back).

Seanie.

Interesting. Both of you seem to have seen quite an event!

Kevin, yours does sound like an Iridium flare (just in case, check www.heavens-above.com for a list of flares).

Bill, I remember seeing such 'events' when I was living in Maynooth. Bart may confirm, but sometimes the airplanes from Dublin Airport do seem like they are a stationary bright star for probably 10 to 20 seconds as they take off. Of course, its an optical illusion, and sometimes, all of a sudden, the plane would rear up and fly overhead! Othertimes, with a quick change in flight path, it changes course (which may appear like the 'sudden' disappearance when you looked back).

Seanie.

Definitely, when the planes here over Maynooth are flying their approach to Dublin they seem to be flying in a square. One minute they are coming straight at you and as such appear to be REALLY bright, quite low and definitely orange, then they take a 90 degree turn and dissapear in a matter of seconds as they swing out of view. If you were to see this, bend down to get an atlas or some such it is very plausible for the plane to have disspeared around a 90 degree turn while you weren't looking.