Interesting trajectory

cfuserkildare

Probably just paranoid, But,
Odd light just passed handle of The Plough in a southerly direction.
Have been noticing a similar light usually heading North.
What makes it stand out is the way that it gets intensely bright for about a second then fades out.
Always in seemingly polar orbit.

Anyone any ideas as to what object is?

Coordinates are:-

Lat 53.34347,

Long -6.5470115.

The Hill Billy

Check out this site... https://www.heavens-above.com/AllSats.aspx

Adding your observation coordinates helps a lot.

ps200306

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Probably just paranoid, But,
Odd light just passed handle of The Plough in a southerly direction.
Have been noticing a similar light usually heading North.
What makes it stand out is the way that it gets intensely bright for about a second then fades out.
Always in seemingly polar orbit.

Anyone any ideas as to what object is?

Coordinates are:-

Lat 53.34347,

Long -6.5470115.

Very likely an Iridium flare. There was one for your location passing southward through the handle of The Plough at 03:38 yesterday (after your initial post but before your last edit, can't tell what time you were actually watching). The Iridium satellites are in polar orbits and have three polished antennae which flare brightly but briefly (for just a few seconds) along a very specific ground track. Outside of the flare itself you can see the satellite body by reflected light under the right conditions.

Last night's one had a ground track whose centre was about 25 km west of your location. Hence the flare was only about magnitude -0.2, about as bright as the brightest star. But if you are close to the centre of the track you can get down to magnitude -8, about half a dozen times brighter than Venus at its best.

Catch 'em while you can. SpaceX are busy launching the replacements for the whole Iridium constellation starting last January. Once they are all up sometime this year or next the older constellation will be decommissioned, and since the new ones don't have the same polished antennae there will be no more flares.

cfuserkildare

ps200306 wrote: »

Very likely an Iridium flare. There was one for your location passing southward through the handle of The Plough at 03:38 yesterday (after your initial post but before your last edit, can't tell what time you were actually watching). The Iridium satellites are in polar orbits and have three polished antennae which flare brightly but briefly (for just a few seconds) along a very specific ground track. Outside of the flare itself you can see the satellite body by reflected light under the right conditions.

Last night's one had a ground track whose centre was about 25 km west of your location. Hence the flare was only about magnitude -0.2, about as bright as the brightest star. But if you are close to the centre of the track you can get down to magnitude -8, about half a dozen times brighter than Venus at its best.

Catch 'em while you can. SpaceX are busy launching the replacements for the whole Iridium constellation starting last January. Once they are all up sometime this year or next the older constellation will be decommissioned, and since the new ones don't have the same polished antennae there will be no more flares.

Time was about 15 minutes before I wrote my post, so around 00.10-00.15 am.

endacl

Anything like this?

ps200306

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Time was about 15 minutes before I wrote my post, so around 00.10-00.15 am.

I'm not seeing anything brighter than magnitude 4 for that time, and nothing passing south through Ursa Major.


https://www.heavens-above.com/AllSats.aspx?lat=53.3437&lng=-6.54701&loc=Kildare%2c+Ireland&alt=63&tz=GMT

cfuserkildare

ps200306 wrote: »

I'm not seeing anything brighter than magnitude 4 for that time, and nothing passing south through Ursa Major.


https://www.heavens-above.com/AllSats.aspx?lat=53.3437&lng=-6.54701&loc=Kildare%2c+Ireland&alt=63&tz=GMT

Object passed by the Handle of the Plough,
If you watch the video showing Iridium Flares, the object would be traveling along the top of the frame

Capt'n Midnight

https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

July 20Falcon 9 • Iridium Next 56-65
Launch time: 1212 GMT (8:12 a.m. EDT; 5:12 a.m. PDT)
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 10 satellites for the Iridium next mobile communications fleet.

ps200306

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

Wow! Ten in one go? If I remember right, the original Iridiums (Iridia? :pac:) were about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. There's obviously been some miniaturisation in twenty years. No wonder they don't have the three big door-sized antennas any more.