For the past ten minutes I've been watching an extremely bright object drift overhead. It is brighter than Venus, is drifting NNE to SSW, right now is due north and almost overhead from my location in North Salt Lake. I only have 10x25mm bino with me. It appears spherical with an appendage sticking out one side. I think it's in the atmosphere, if it's orbiting, it is very far, not a low orbit at all. Moving too slowly. I'll follow it for as long as I can. Check the time on this message. Probably only going to be visible for a little while longer. Still visible in a bright blue sky, the sun isn't up yet though. Any confirmations are appreciated.
It just faded out. It changed course and started moving due west. In the 25 minutes I watched it, it covered perhaps 40-degrees of sky. Clouds drifted in front of it periodically, so it was above the cloud deck. To me it appeared to be something shining by reflected sunlight very high in the atmosphere, but because it was at least 30 arc seconds across, it must have been huge. It also didn't have any specular or concentrated reflections, it appeared uniformly illuminated. I tried to get a pic with the smartphone on max zoom. It registered but the exposure was long and it's a bit zig-zag on the frame, and of course the magnification was too small to see any detail anyway. It first caught my eye as I was just scanning the morning sky, as I do most mornings before getting started at work. I left a downpour at home to find an increasingly clearing sky in North Salt Lake. Venus was bright and easily visible just above the mountains. Looking up I saw this thing, as bright as Venus or even brighter. Thought at first it was a nova or supernova, or the ISS, but it was barely moving, and moving the wrong direction, drifting slowly east-to-west. As the sky brightened, it continued slowly moving, first toward the southwest, then shifting more westerly. This makes it *moving against the prevailing wind direction*. I used to keep a small telescope in my office but took it home a year or so ago. I need to bring it back, the small bino just didn't cut it for this one. Hoping someone else saw this, it was remarkable. On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
For the past ten minutes I've been watching an extremely bright object drift overhead. It is brighter than Venus, is drifting NNE to SSW, right now is due north and almost overhead from my location in North Salt Lake.
I only have 10x25mm bino with me. It appears spherical with an appendage sticking out one side.
I think it's in the atmosphere, if it's orbiting, it is very far, not a low orbit at all. Moving too slowly.
I'll follow it for as long as I can.
Check the time on this message. Probably only going to be visible for a little while longer. Still visible in a bright blue sky, the sun isn't up yet though.
Any confirmations are appreciated.
I called Patrick, hoping he hadn't gone to bed yet and could try for it in his telescope, but he was standing on the rail platform in DC, on the way to get his award (Congrats again, PW!) On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:49 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
It just faded out.
It changed course and started moving due west. In the 25 minutes I watched it, it covered perhaps 40-degrees of sky. Clouds drifted in front of it periodically, so it was above the cloud deck.
To me it appeared to be something shining by reflected sunlight very high in the atmosphere, but because it was at least 30 arc seconds across, it must have been huge. It also didn't have any specular or concentrated reflections, it appeared uniformly illuminated.
I tried to get a pic with the smartphone on max zoom. It registered but the exposure was long and it's a bit zig-zag on the frame, and of course the magnification was too small to see any detail anyway.
It first caught my eye as I was just scanning the morning sky, as I do most mornings before getting started at work. I left a downpour at home to find an increasingly clearing sky in North Salt Lake. Venus was bright and easily visible just above the mountains. Looking up I saw this thing, as bright as Venus or even brighter. Thought at first it was a nova or supernova, or the ISS, but it was barely moving, and moving the wrong direction, drifting slowly east-to-west. As the sky brightened, it continued slowly moving, first toward the southwest, then shifting more westerly. This makes it *moving against the prevailing wind direction*.
I used to keep a small telescope in my office but took it home a year or so ago. I need to bring it back, the small bino just didn't cut it for this one.
Hoping someone else saw this, it was remarkable.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
For the past ten minutes I've been watching an extremely bright object drift overhead. It is brighter than Venus, is drifting NNE to SSW, right now is due north and almost overhead from my location in North Salt Lake.
I only have 10x25mm bino with me. It appears spherical with an appendage sticking out one side.
I think it's in the atmosphere, if it's orbiting, it is very far, not a low orbit at all. Moving too slowly.
I'll follow it for as long as I can.
Check the time on this message. Probably only going to be visible for a little while longer. Still visible in a bright blue sky, the sun isn't up yet though.
Any confirmations are appreciated.
Here's the pic I took. You can just see it near the center, somewhat smeared due to hand-holding and long exposure. Not much, and it doesn't look at all like the naked-eye view, which was spectacularly bright and obvious. http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii24/JethroTull1958/mysteryobject_zpsd835... On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:50 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
I called Patrick, hoping he hadn't gone to bed yet and could try for it in his telescope, but he was standing on the rail platform in DC, on the way to get his award (Congrats again, PW!)
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:49 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
It just faded out.
It changed course and started moving due west. In the 25 minutes I watched it, it covered perhaps 40-degrees of sky. Clouds drifted in front of it periodically, so it was above the cloud deck.
To me it appeared to be something shining by reflected sunlight very high in the atmosphere, but because it was at least 30 arc seconds across, it must have been huge. It also didn't have any specular or concentrated reflections, it appeared uniformly illuminated.
I tried to get a pic with the smartphone on max zoom. It registered but the exposure was long and it's a bit zig-zag on the frame, and of course the magnification was too small to see any detail anyway.
It first caught my eye as I was just scanning the morning sky, as I do most mornings before getting started at work. I left a downpour at home to find an increasingly clearing sky in North Salt Lake. Venus was bright and easily visible just above the mountains. Looking up I saw this thing, as bright as Venus or even brighter. Thought at first it was a nova or supernova, or the ISS, but it was barely moving, and moving the wrong direction, drifting slowly east-to-west. As the sky brightened, it continued slowly moving, first toward the southwest, then shifting more westerly. This makes it *moving against the prevailing wind direction*.
I used to keep a small telescope in my office but took it home a year or so ago. I need to bring it back, the small bino just didn't cut it for this one.
Hoping someone else saw this, it was remarkable.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
For the past ten minutes I've been watching an extremely bright object drift overhead. It is brighter than Venus, is drifting NNE to SSW, right now is due north and almost overhead from my location in North Salt Lake.
I only have 10x25mm bino with me. It appears spherical with an appendage sticking out one side.
I think it's in the atmosphere, if it's orbiting, it is very far, not a low orbit at all. Moving too slowly.
I'll follow it for as long as I can.
Check the time on this message. Probably only going to be visible for a little while longer. Still visible in a bright blue sky, the sun isn't up yet though.
Any confirmations are appreciated.
Thanks Chuck. Got checked in at Astro-Mecca (NASA HQ) and am now using NASA WiFi. Fun. Regarding your object, the first thing that came to mind was weather balloon. Can you rule that out? CalSky indicates a weather balloon being visible this morning during the 6:00 hour. They have it initially moving east and then south with the balloon bursting at just over 31 km altitude. patrick Sent from my iPad
On Aug 14, 2014, at 8:50, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
I called Patrick, hoping he hadn't gone to bed yet and could try for it in his telescope, but he was standing on the rail platform in DC, on the way to get his award (Congrats again, PW!)
That's what I'm leaning towards, though it appeared to be moving west. And it sure was huge for a weather balloon. How large do they typically get before bursting? On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
Regarding your object, the first thing that came to mind was weather balloon. Can you rule that out?
CalSky indicates a weather balloon being visible this morning during the 6:00 hour. They have it initially moving east and then south with the balloon bursting at just over 31 km altitude.
CalSky puts the diameter at busting at "11.0m/0.5". Not sure what the 0.5 means. Maybe it means plus or minus. Either way, that's still pretty big and ought to reflect a lot of sunlight. patrick Sent from my iPad
On Aug 14, 2014, at 9:53, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
That's what I'm leaning towards, though it appeared to be moving west. And it sure was huge for a weather balloon. How large do they typically get before bursting?
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
Regarding your object, the first thing that came to mind was weather balloon. Can you rule that out?
CalSky indicates a weather balloon being visible this morning during the 6:00 hour. They have it initially moving east and then south with the balloon bursting at just over 31 km altitude.
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Bruno and I saw an amazing balloon this spring in Rexburg. We had set up for a Sun-Party at a middle school. We watched it for hours. It was virtually stationary for long periods. We looked at it with the 160 at up to 128x and couldn't be sure of it exact shape. Depth is difficult to determine. It was round in shape in the horizontal plane but didn't look as thick as it was round, i.e., it looked saucer shaped. It was difficult to see if the bottom surface was concave or convex although it would have had to have been convex to give it volume. There was something visible in the middle, some sort of instruments I presume. The balloon covered almost no distance during that time. Almost as though it was ground controlled. On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
That's what I'm leaning towards, though it appeared to be moving west. And it sure was huge for a weather balloon. How large do they typically get before bursting?
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
Regarding your object, the first thing that came to mind was weather balloon. Can you rule that out?
CalSky indicates a weather balloon being visible this morning during the 6:00 hour. They have it initially moving east and then south with the balloon bursting at just over 31 km altitude.
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-- Siegfried
About the size of a medium-sized alien reconnaissance vessel. Brace yourself. Dave On Aug 14, 2014, at 7:53, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
That's what I'm leaning towards, though it appeared to be moving west. And it sure was huge for a weather balloon. How large do they typically get before bursting?
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
Regarding your object, the first thing that came to mind was weather balloon. Can you rule that out?
CalSky indicates a weather balloon being visible this morning during the 6:00 hour. They have it initially moving east and then south with the balloon bursting at just over 31 km altitude.
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I was up at 5 to prep some bread I was baking for work today, and took a quick gander outside. Solid cloud cover down here in Utah County. /R ________________________________ From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 8:43 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Bright object LOOK NOW! I've been waiting to see who would be first one to post the "A" word or the "U" word. Dave wins! On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 8:23 AM, Dave Gary <davegary@me.com> wrote:
About the size of a medium-sized alien reconnaissance vessel. Brace yourself.
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Thanks for trying, Rich. It was remarkably bright and looked like a featureless white planet in the binos, except for the spike off one side, which I'm interpreting as the instrument package hanging from it's tether. It was raining cats and dogs when I left the house, but just 13 miles north, it was dry and clearing in south Davis county. On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 9:17 AM, Richard Tenney via Utah-Astronomy < utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
I was up at 5 to prep some bread I was baking for work today, and took a quick gander outside. Solid cloud cover down here in Utah County. /R
I saw another weather balloon this morning while observing Venus and Jupiter, this one even brighter than the one last week. Amazingly bright. I think the sun-balloon-observer geometry must be just right for me this time of year, and I'm very close to the airport, where they are released. I've seen them going up in the morning on my way to work, apparently it takes about an hour for them to reach peak altitude and burst.
Chuck: One of my "go to" websites for nighttime viewing conditions is the U of WYO site in the link below. Click on the SLC link and you get data from the latest sounding balloon. Balloons go up twice a day at 0 and 12 Zulu time which is 6am and 6pm MDT. Of major interest is the Precipitable water [mm] for entire sounding: 12.97 at the bottom of the page. At a half inch or less (12mm) the air column is dry enough for some deep sky viewing of external galaxies. 8mm is rare during our monsoon but it happens and it's spectacular. at an inch (25mm) the air is so full of water that we will be dodging thunderstorms and the viewing is poor. I also look for layer in the sounding that have RELH% of 50 or more. even in an otherwise dry sky this layer is moist enough for the hygroscopic dust to start picking up water, forming droplets, and degrading the viewing. This usually manifests as hazy rings around brighter stars. People often mistake this for dew on their optics but if you look through a warm pair of 10x50s you will see the same rings. That tells you the stuff is in an air layer above you and not on your secondary mirror. DT http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com>
To: Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com>; Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 6:58 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Bright object LOOK NOW!
I saw another weather balloon this morning while observing Venus and Jupiter, this one even brighter than the one last week. Amazingly bright. I think the sun-balloon-observer geometry must be just right for me this time of year, and I'm very close to the airport, where they are released. I've seen them going up in the morning on my way to work, apparently it takes about an hour for them to reach peak altitude and burst. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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I stopped by the NWS office recently to ask about wx balloon launches and the guy said they don't follow the standard. Instead they launch at 11:00 UTC and 23:00 UTC. I just checked the CalSky site and saw those are the times they use for their predictions. So once again Utah is the odd ball. :) patrick On 18 Aug 2014, at 10:52, daniel turner via Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
Chuck: One of my "go to" websites for nighttime viewing conditions is the U of WYO site in the link below.
Click on the SLC link and you get data from the latest sounding balloon. Balloons go up twice a day at 0 and 12 Zulu time which is 6am and 6pm MDT. Of major interest is the
Precipitable water [mm] for entire sounding: 12.97
at the bottom of the page. At a half inch or less (12mm) the air column is dry enough for some deep sky viewing of external galaxies.
8mm is rare during our monsoon but it happens and it's spectacular.
at an inch (25mm) the air is so full of water that we will be dodging thunderstorms and the viewing is poor.
I also look for layer in the sounding that have RELH% of 50 or more. even in an otherwise dry sky this layer is moist enough for the hygroscopic dust to start picking up water, forming droplets, and degrading the viewing. This usually manifests as hazy rings around brighter stars. People often mistake this for dew on their optics but if you look through a warm pair of 10x50s you will see the same rings. That tells you the stuff is in an air layer above you and not on your secondary mirror.
DT
participants (6)
-
Chuck Hards -
daniel turner -
Dave Gary -
Richard Tenney -
Siegfried Jachmann -
Wiggins Patrick