Very bright geo satellite in my night sky?

[avicenna]

TL;DR Summary

There is a very bright geostationary satellite visible in our nigh sky quite recently. It was there at 10 pm and was there at 6am at the same position which means it is stationary above a fixed position relative to the earth.

Something strange! There is a very bright geostationary satellite visible in our nigh sky quite recently. It was there at 10 pm and was there at 6am at the same position which means it is stationary above a fixed position relative to the earth. But the internet says we cannot see geostationary satellites which should at very high orbit.

So what is it. It is the brightest "star" almost like Venus when visible.

 

[berkeman]

Um, well um, er, I'm not sure how to say this...

What are the coordinates of this object (duh), or at least your lat/long on the Earth and which direction you are looking?

 

[Vanadium 50]

@berkeman is right - we need to know a) where you are, and b) where it is. Anything else you can tell us would be helpful. "Almost as bright as Venus" means what exactly? ASs bright as Jupiter? As bright as Venus at is maximum or minimum. Do you see a color? A disk?

We need more than "I saw something. What is it?"

 

[avicenna]

Um, well um, er, I'm not sure how to say this...

What are the coordinates of this object (duh), or at least your lat/long on the Earth and which direction you are looking?

I am looking slightly towards east; altitude is about 60 degree from horizontal. Sky not cloudy at 10pm and not a single other star visible. At 6am, also no other stars. sunrise about 7am.
[edit] I don't want to reveal my location fro privacy reasons. The point is taht it is at the same location at 10pm and 6am. Cannot be a bright light carried by weather baloon.

 

[berkeman]

I am looking slightly towards east; altitude is about 60 degree from horizontal. Sky not cloudy at 10pm and not a single other star visible. At 6am, also no other stars. sunrise about 7am.

Well that narrows it down to the whole Earth. Thanks mucho. Counting down.... three one thousand, two one thousand, one one thousand (you don't want me to get to the zero one thousand)...

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you don't tell us where you are, it's going to be hard. It's like telling us "it's on my left".

Something to think about. Venus is 8000 miles across and on average about 100 million miles away. If something is as bright and 20,000 miles away, it's got to be about a mile and a half across, assuming it shines by reflected sunlight.

 

[avicenna]

If you don't tell us where you are, it's going to be hard. It's like telling us "it's on my left".

Something to think about. Venus is 8000 miles across and on average about 100 million miles away. If something is as bright and 20,000 miles away, it's got to be about a mile and a half across, assuming it shines by reflected sunlight.

That's also my understanding. I don't understand why my location is needed, say Ecuador. The fact is it is at the same location and does not rise and set with the sun. I can't understand.

 

[DaveC426913]

For all the details OP is giving us, we might as well to conclude it's Jupiter at night and Venus in the morning. I'm not sure I have enough confidence in their observational or communicaton skills to rule it out.

According to Stellarium, in Ecuador's sky Venus is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 6AM, and Jupiter is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 10PM.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Because there are lots of satellites up there.
However, there are also a lot of non-satellites.

In either case, knowing where you are and where you see it helps determining what it is. You can keep secrets, that's your choice, but how do you expect us to help you if you do?

That said, if you are at the equator, you should be able to work out where the putative satellite is over. Nevertheless, I think with what you have already told us, it is probably not a satellite. It may not even be a single object.

 

[avicenna]

For all the details OP is giving us, we might as well to conclude it's Jupiter at night and Venus in the morning. I'm not sure I have enough confidence in their observational or communicaton skills to rule it out.

According to Stellarium, in Ecuador's sky Venus is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 6AM, and Jupiter is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 10PM.View attachment 333926

View attachment 333925

If it is a planet, it would move with the stars. But it is not moving. I will try watching at 10pm and then 3am tomorrow. At 6am today it was "there".

 

[Baluncore]

I don't want to reveal my location fro privacy reasons. The point is taht it is at the same location at 10pm and 6am.

I would suggest you identify the object yourself.
Go to this site. https://www.heavens-above.com/main.aspx
Specify your location.
When you see the object, look to see what is predicted to be there in the sky.

 

[berkeman]

If it is a planet, it would move with the stars.

No comment. Have fun. (oops, that was a comment, no?)

 

[russ_watters]

For all the details OP is giving us, we might as well to conclude it's Jupiter at night and Venus in the morning.

That's what I was thinking as well. A pair of binoculars would be able to verify it.

 

[russ_watters]

If it is a planet, it would move with the stars. But it is not moving. I will try watching at 10pm and then 3am tomorrow. At 6am today it was "there".

Only if you watch it long enough to see it move....and you said you didn't see any stars.

 

[DaveC426913]

Another possibility is Saturn and Sirius.

 

[Vanadium 50]

With the information we have, which is the more likely possibility?

A, You are seeing two different objects.
B. There is a small moon-sized body in geosynchroinous orbit that only you can see. To give an idea of the size, I have a comparison between the size of the object and the largest rocket that might have launched it.

That's the speck on the bottom.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Do you have a smartphone? Download Stellarium. The app lets you point the phone at the sky, and displays in real time what you are looking at. I don't remember if the free version includes satellite data, but - like others - I don't think you'll need that.

 

[russ_watters]

Also Google Sky Map app.

 

[avicenna]

That's what I was thinking as well. A pair of binoculars would be able to verify it.

If it was Jupiter and Venus, then it was a strange coincidence that I watched at 10pm and 6am when one planet replaced the other. I will watch tonight at 9.pm and follow up after to see if it sets. They almost have the same brightness, the brightest stars I have ever seen.

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you saw it around 10PM and 6AM, and your theory is that it's geostationary, you don't test the theory by looking again near 10PM and 6AM. You test it by looking at 2 AM.

 

[avicenna]

For all the details OP is giving us, we might as well to conclude it's Jupiter at night and Venus in the morning. I'm not sure I have enough confidence in their observational or communicaton skills to rule it out.

According to Stellarium, in Ecuador's sky Venus is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 6AM, and Jupiter is about 35 degrees up in the Eastern sky at 10PM.View attachment 333926

View attachment 333925

You are dead right! The night star is Jupiter.

I look for the star at 9pm tonight but the Singapore (not Ecuador) sky was cloudy. At 11.30pm, the sky cleared and there was the lone, but bright star. It was clearly shifted west by an appreciable arc , say 20-30deg.

What confused me originally was I saw two different planets of similar brightness at about the same position at different times - 10pm and 6am! It is a rather rare event of coincidence. I could not distinguish the different brightness of Jupiter and Venus.

[edit]I was part cause of the rare coincidence; had I watched at 10pm and 12midnight, then I would have known the star was a planet.

 

[Eleonora]

@avicenna - I think your previous thought was absolutely right, and it is indeed a geostationary satellite. I was wondering since October 2023 who it belonged to. And it is indeed unusually bright, so that one can easily confuse it with Jupiter or even Venus. Well, I'm just happy somebody else noticed it too.

Greetings from Southern Germany!

 

[sonhousen]

So look at it with a good pair of binoculars. Even with those, Jupiter would stand out because 4 of the moons would be visible, for instance, you wouldn't need stellarium or some such software, which I have BTW and it is awesome.

 

[Eleonora]

I understand your scepticism (or anyone else's), but Jupiter can't currently be seen in Southern Germany before early hours in the morning. Whatever it was/is, it wasn't flickering like a star, but looked like a planet with its brightness closest to Jupiter. Then it started changing its brightness going from -2 to about -3.5 making it even brighter like Venus, then dimming again to -1 or so.

That's when I knew it was an artificial object. But it stayed in the same position all the time unlike other satellites in low orbit (which totally confused me, and for a moment, even scared me). Then I saw this object going brighter and dimming again a couple more times in the following months and wondered if there was some kind of an astrophysics experiment going on. (That's why I started googling it hoping to find someone else with similar observations.)

And my last logical explanation for this phenomenon is that it was just a drone. They are relatively inexpensive these days and somebody could have played a joke on me.

 

[glappkaeft]

I understand your scepticism (or anyone else's), but Jupiter can't currently be seen in Southern Germany before early hours in the morning.

No, Jupiter can be seen before sun rise in southern Germany right now. Edit: also Mars and, out of frame, to the right Saturn.

 

[phinds]

@avicenna - I think your previous thought was absolutely right, and it is indeed a geostationary satellite.

Did you not understand post #16

 

[Baluncore]

I think your previous thought was absolutely right, and it is indeed a geostationary satellite.

There are a couple of simple tests for a geostationary satellite.

When seen at night, against the background of the "fixed stars", a geostationary satellite will appear to move at a rate of 15° per hour towards the east. You should be able to see a geostationary satellite creeping along with binoculars. Planets move very much slower against the background. During one night of observations with binoculars, you will not detect a planet moving.

A photograph, from a fixed camera, with a four-minute exposure, will show a geostationary satellite as a fixed point, while the stars will each form a short 1° long arc. A geostationary satellite in the photograph will appear to be brighter, since the light during those four-minutes is accumulated, and has not been spread over a 1° arc.

 

[Drakkith]

Geostationary satellites aren't usually visible to the naked eye and are certainly not as bright as planetary bodies or even bright stars, typically coming in at magnitudes +11 to +14, occasionally +5 or +6, with one being reported as about +3 once (source). Even in the darkest of skies under the best of viewing conditions geostationary satellites are almost impossible to see at all. At least without a telescope.

 

[Eleonora]

Totally grateful for all explanations except the one from glappkaeft. Every time I saw this object was about 10p.m. in Southern Germany, and I learned much later that Jupiter cannot be seen UNTIL the early hours in the morning (meaning before sunrise doesn't contradict my statement).

And I'm taking back my statement about it being a drone, because I saw it from two different cities in Germany. And now that I think of it, that would be way too much trouble for anyone to play a joke on me.

Avicenna's statement has caught my eye and I wondered if the two of us were referring to same thing. (The windows of my apartment face east.)

Anyway, google search has brought me here and being able to comment on Avicenna's statement was the sole reason for me to sign up. I'm a genetic genealogist who likes to look up to the sky once in a while, but I have little to no expertise when it comes to astrophysics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Totally grateful for all explanations except the one from glappkaeft.

Why not? Because he is not telling you what you want to hear?

Further, your messages are a couple of weeks apart. How do you know you are seeing the same object?

 

[Eleonora]

Why not? Because he is not telling you what you want to hear?

English is not my native language, just one of several that I speak. If I'm not mistaken, he is saying the exact same thing I said previously myself. So what was his point of making that comment?

How do you know you are seeing the same object?

Since October 2023 I've been seeing an object in the sky that appears as a star or a planet at first of about -2 mag. Then its brightness increases to about -3,5 mag before it starts dimming to about -1. Therefore, it isn't a natural object.

I have seen it do that only about 3-4 times in two different cities - in all cases while looking east between 6 to 10p.m. (winter) and 10p.m. (summer). It wasn't moving, just changing its brightness.

I'm wondering if this is some kind of a scientific experiment, that's all. (Sometimes there are green lasers in the sky that are used for cloud density measurement or something like that.)

As much as I would have loved it, I'm sure it weren't aliens... definitely human made.

(And I'm not trying to convince anybody - if you don't believe me it's absolutely ok. I've described it as best as I could and don't have anything to add. The only thing I wanted to know was if Avicenna saw it brighten up and the dim again or not.)

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you have seen it only 3-4 times in almost a year, you do not know it is the same object.

If it is that bright, it is not a geosynchronous satellite.

There are more options than "someone playing a trick on me" and "satellite". Evidence against one is not evidence for the other.

If you are the only one who has ever seen it, that's an issue.

 

[russ_watters]

Yeah, I also don't get how from so few and sparse sightings you know it's the same object. 4 days in a row (and tracked for several hours each time....), sure. 4 days in 9 months, no. It should take a very small amount of focused effort to identify this object. Unfortunately the effort seems to have been very unfocused.

 

[Vanadium 50]

focused

I saw what you did there.

 

[DaveC426913]

Since October 2023 I've been seeing an object in the sky that appears as a star or a planet at first of about -2 mag. Then its brightness increases to about -3,5 mag before it starts dimming to about -1. Therefore, it isn't a natural object.

This is definitely not a good conclusion. Sky conditions have a huge impact on how bright natural celestial objects appear over time.

The biggest factors are haze, water vapour and light pollution. You will not necessarily see a uniform haze in the sky, but what happens is: one night when there is lots of haze or water vapour, the sky is much more opaque - and light pollution exacerbates an opaque sky. You can't tell from one night to another how objectively opaque the sky is, you wouldn't notice anything different except dim stars and planets.

This combination of haze and light pollution makes it difficult and even impossible to see many objects that would be easily visible on some other night when the air is dry.


The upshot is that natural objects can easily vary by several orders of magnitude over even a few minutes, never mind a few days.

Next time you go out to look at planets, make a note of (roughly) how many stars you can see in the sky. Try again another night. You'll find a strong correlation between how bright planets appear and how many stars you can see in the same sky on different nights. If you can see thousands, it's a transparent sky. If you see hundreds or even mere dozens, it's an opaque sky.


Here is a website that shows, for a given location and time, not just cloud cover but also the transparency of the sky.

https://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/