Shooting Star or....

[ApophisAstros]

x

[MarkS]

Last nights highlight
Seems to be a Satelite and after a while it burns up so presumably a Meteor skimming the Earth and being pulled in then burning up.
Anyone got any idea on this?

I'm guessing it's an aircraft which develops a contrail.

Mark

[NoelC]

I agree with Mark; it seems very dim in the dark part of the sky, but then becomes brighter as if it's being illuminated from below (rather than glowing).

Noel

[ApophisAstros]

Last nights highlight
Seems to be a Satelite and after a while it burns up so presumably a Meteor skimming the Earth and being pulled in then burning up.
Anyone got any idea on this?

I'm guessing it's an aircraft which develops a contrail.

Mark

##Thanks Mark,Noel.
Would it have taken 2 mins 43 secs to go that short distance,and the absence of lights flashing on/off.??But you may be right,most plausable so far.
Roger

[ApophisAstros]

Had a thought, Space Debris as the contrail of an aircraft would have stayed for a bit?
Roger

[Rick]

It's been very dry. The few aircraft at high(-ish) altitude I'm seeing here (near the top of the Bristol Channel) have hardly any contrail during the day.

[ApophisAstros]

It's been very dry. The few aircraft at high(-ish) altitude I'm seeing here (near the top of the Bristol Channel) have hardly any contrail during the day.

This was during DSD though and why was the contrail not continuous from start to finish like it usually is.
Roger

[The Thing]

It's been very dry. The few aircraft at high(-ish) altitude I'm seeing here (near the top of the Bristol Channel) have hardly any contrail during the day.

This was during DSD though and why was the contrail not continuous from start to finish like it usually is.
Roger

We often get contrails that appear and disappear as the plane flies over, usually at around 30,000 ft here, there must be varying air pockets that the plane is flying through right on the cusp of trail/no trail conditions. 'Triple point of water' comes into my head at random :} Physics lessons were a long long time ago.

[Rick]

If a plane's flying close to an atmospheric boundary (like the troposphere/stratosphere level) and one air-mass is relatively more humid than the other, and the plane passes alternately through one and then the other, a contrail may appear like a line of dashes. Or a plane that's climbng or descending may start (or stop) producing a contrail as it passes from one air-mass into another with very different relative humidity or temperature. Boundary zones are seldom simple.

(Your video's on FB, so I've not been able to watch it, so I'm guessing from others' descriptions.)

[ApophisAstros]

If a plane's flying close to an atmospheric boundary (like the troposphere/stratosphere level) and one air-mass is relatively more humid than the other, and the plane passes alternately through one and then the other, a contrail may appear like a line of dashes. Or a plane that's climbng or descending may start (or stop) producing a contrail as it passes from one air-mass into another with very different relative humidity or temperature. Boundary zones are seldom simple.

(Your video's on FB, so I've not been able to watch it, so I'm guessing from others' descriptions.)

Its public so everyone should be able to view.
Roger

[Rick]

Its public so everyone should be able to view.

I get a "Something went wrong" error. It won't elaborate further as to what than "something" might be.

[ApophisAstros]

Might be your settings as everyone else watches it fine.
Roger

[MarkH]

FWIW I would say that is something entering the atmosphere and burning up. The reason I say that is because the trail follows a particular pattern. The trail starts quite dimly and then intermittently increases until all the matter is burned away when it suddenly disappears. Have a look at the footage of the famous Russian meteor strike and make a comparison.
Mark.
P.S. The fact that the "tail" keeps up with the head would also suggest this as contrails tend to last a few seconds at minimum and normally a few minutes.

[Rick]

Seems Firefox took a dislike to the video. Safari managed to play it (after I told FB to leave off trying to make me login about sixty times, and it only let me view it a few times before telling me "content no longer available"...)

How long is the event? If it plays in "real time" (or therabouts, given the field of view) then I'd say you have a meteor/fireball. If it's playing more than about ten times "real time" speed then I'd suspect an aircraft. Looking closely at individual frames may help.

If it's a piece of man-made space junk then you should be able to find predictions and reports of its decay. There's nothing for that date on https://aerospace.org/reentries (but it seems to list major objects only). http://www.satview.org/spacejunk.php has a more comprehensive list, but again doesn't show anything close to that date.

Places to look for reports of fireballs over the UK include:

https://ukmeteornetwork.co.uk/fireballs/ (( dead link 2023/11/23 ))
https://www.popastro.com/main_spa1/meteor/fireball-sightings/
https://britastro.org/section_front/19

[ApophisAstros]

How long is the event? If it plays in "real time" (or therabouts, given the field of view) then I'd say you have a meteor/fireball. If it's playing more than about ten times "real time" speed then I'd suspect an aircraft. Looking closely at individual frames may help.

There is a timecode top left.
Roger

[Rick]

There is a timecode top left.

The digits are 5 pixels high in the video FB is sending me, and it won't send me a better resolution version, so the timecode is not legible.

I'd say if it was moving slower than ISS then it's a plane. If it was moving faster than ISS then it's a meteor. Meteors with trails aren't that rare, but nice to see. Very occasionally the trails persist, particularly if they're illuminated in twilight.

If you really want to figure out what you saw, try to extract at least three of the best frames at the best available resolution, and look closely from there.

[Hugh]

The SPA website (see link below) gives good information on the possibles and the comments on contrails and, importantly, the length of time visible (here well over 2 minutes) would seem to point more towards it being an aircraft.  Pity, as when I first saw it I thought what a great catch! 

Still, got us talking Roger.

https://www.popastro.com/main_spa1/meteor/fireball-sightings/ (also highlighted by Rick).

Best

Hugh