SAtellite with funny orbit

The_B_Man

Hi,

I was out watching the ISS earlier and decided to crack out the telescope to look at Jupiter. That was grand.

As we were about to head in, I looked up pretty much straight up above my house and saw a flash. Then every few seconds I saw the flash again, but it was moved. I'm guessing it was a spinning satellite?

Anyway, it went between the big dippers "bottom" 3 stars, right next to the middle of those 3, then flashed every few seconds and faded in brightness until it completely disappeared. Then another flash and so on.

I thought the orbit was strange so was curious as to what type of satellite it was. Maybe GPS or some other high up one? It was a pretty bright flash though. Around the same brightness as the stars in the big dipper, if not brighter, so I'm not sure how high it could have been.

When we lost sight of it, I came in and checked the time and it was 22:46. I've attached an image of the path that I stuck on some image I found online. I'm not sure if the other big star was Arcturus or not, but it went passed a bright star, which had a less bright star beside it (beside=about the same distance apart as the star in the big dipper are apart).

I'd seen similar once before, but didn't get the time or any sky "landmarks" to try identify it, so I said I'd try this time.

Anyway, my mother saw it as well and we both thought it'd be pretty cool to try identify what we saw. Can anyone help?

Thanks,

gctest50

You might find something here :

http://www.heavens-above.com/allsats.aspx?lat=51.61802&lng=-8.08594&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT

Popoutman

With a curved path like that it would only be an aircraft. Satellites move only in straight lines against the stars (that curve when projected on certain maps) as to change the direction of the satellite would take a huge amount of energy and very few satellites have a) the capability and b) the onboard fuel to be able to move with an example of the KH-x ground observation satellites.

The most likely explanation for your sighting was an airplane.

The_B_Man

Fair enough, but it'd wanna be a seriously high up airplane!

I watch the ISS a lot, and I've seen a lot of other satellites, so this would be the first time I've mistaken a plane for a satellite. Weird that a plane would take such a random course though. Basically coming from the north, down to Ireland, then towards Europe. Maybe from somewhere in Russia towards France.

Popoutman

Most aircraft show up on sites like http://www.flightradar24.com but if it is a military flight it won't have the transponder transmitting the positional data.

I agree it's an unusual flightpath, but from your description it could be an RAF flight off the coast of Scotland.

coylemj

OP, I entered the co-ordinates for Tallaght into Heavens Above and last night between 22:30 and 23:00, no satellite brighter than magnitude 5.0 passed through the handle of the Plough so it had to be a plane.