What did I just see?

[Amoeba]

I woke up at around 6:15 this morning after having a horrible nightmare! Ugh. I'm a nightmare veteran but this one just blew my mind. Anyway I'm getting off the topic...

South-South-West. There were these two starts visible from my pillow (I always have curtains open, I don't like them closed ever) and right afterwards I got up for the bathroom. I was only about a minute and a half. Afterwards I lay back down on my bed and put my head on the pillow. I looked at the window again and... wait, there was only one star visible now and it had moved considerably!

I could only see both stars if I moved my head so it was lying half-way down the bed. Yeah, I actually did shuffle down so that I was lying like that, legs hanging out the bottom of the bed, feet on the floor. I found it so weird that the stars would move so fast like that (I realise it's the Earth's rotation but you know what I mean). Actually I was slightly freaked out.

Then, at the bottom right corner of these two stars, as if completing a triangle, from the blackness of space a light suddenly appeared, blinking into view, before fading back out and disappearing as soon as it appeared. It was a yellowish orange, and much brighter than the other stars. It wasn't moving, it was totally stationary. What's funny is I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't moved down the bed like that.

The nightmare, plus the freakishly quick passing of the stars, plus that blink of yellow light, made me shake and shiver like mad. I lay in bed for a few moments and watched the remaining star in view slowly disappear behind the curtain before I got up.

What on (er... off) Earth did I just see? Anyone willing to guess? Or maybe someone here knows? Later on I thought it could perhaps be a satellite reflecting the sun's light, it would explain how it blinked into view for only a second or two and became invisible again. But I was always told that they showed up blue, not orange.

[bigdave60dog]

Don`t really know but as you say that it may have been a satellite reflecting the Suns light you must be for enough South to see the Sun at 6.15.
Have you ever seen a "Sundog" or "Solar Halo"? I leave it to you to research on this and compare this to your experience.
I spent many years looking after sheep and many nights walking fields at certain times of the year. There are a great many things that one sees that will always go unexplained. these are what make life more interesting.
Dave

[artdemole]

Virgo constellation was visible at that time.Also Saturn was in Virgo at that time.Also the constellation Corvus Cold have been visible.They can disappear as astronomical twilight starts. You can use Heavens Above to check whole sky chart for any time.

[Amoeba]

Originally Posted by bigdave60dog

Don`t really know but as you say that it may have been a satellite reflecting the Suns light you must be for enough South to see the Sun at 6.15.
Have you ever seen a "Sundog" or "Solar Halo"? I leave it to you to research on this and compare this to your experience.
I spent many years looking after sheep and many nights walking fields at certain times of the year. There are a great many things that one sees that will always go unexplained. these are what make life more interesting.
Dave

The sun wasn't up yet, it was still dark (sun doesn't rise until about 8:30 here at this time of year) hence my usage of the term "from the blackness of space". This was nothing like a sun dog or solar halo either, and I've seen a few of those myself, but only ever during daylight hours.

artdemole, can these stars appear and disappear in under two seconds flat? I'm just asking because although I can't imagine why they could, maybe there's a phenomenon I haven't heard of that allows this to happen.

I'm not sure I've really made what I was saying clear. So I'm going to make a wee gif animation of what I saw (except it didn't blink repeatedly like that, I just have the animation on a loop):

Link to animated illustration.

Again, the animation is on a loop. What I saw only blinked once, not repeatedly like in the animation. There was one semi-bright star above it and another to the left of it.

[wizzo]

I'm no astromomer by any means, but could you have possibly witnessed the death of a star? Many years ago, I witnessed, 3 x three bright lights, that formed slow moving triangles. I'm convinced that these were not 'any known' objects. Anyway, I'm not at all sure that this is the correct forum for this anecdote! Wizzo

[nytecam]

DeathStar huuuum....

The US Navy have a spy 3-satellite program where the satellites appear in a close triangle as they pass across the sky - however the sats are small and faint and have never been described as 'bright' to the unaided eye.

Ameoba was, I think, looking through a window which can reflect faint light from within the room to give the illusion of being in the sky. From bed we have two bright green UFOs that hang motionless above distant rooftops - caused by the LED on the Freeview box on the TV seen reflected in double glazing

[Amoeba]

There are no light sources in my bedroom, except my bed-side lamp and my ceiling lamp which were both off. No TVs, no stereos, no games consoles, no nothing.

I'm beginning to think the two other stars were just ordinary stars, but they appeared to move quickly for some reason because of the relatively small view scope of my bedroom window from where I was lying. I don't know about that for sure. You know like how if you're looking at something at high magnification you can see it physically move. Maybe this was a similar idea except on a much bigger, slower scale. I think so because they stayed the same apparent distance from the other stars visible in the sky.

Can the light from a dying star appear and disappear in a second or two as it reaches us? It would be interesting if it was a dying star.

EDIT: I just had a look on stellarium and the two stars that I saw that appeared to be fast moving were a star called Spica and the planet Saturn. So yeah, it must have just been the apparent speed looked faster than usual. The mysterious flash was beneath Saturn and to the right of Spica.

[UB4 gardener]

an irridium flare maybe? some can appear for a while, others ,'tumblers', flash

Chris

[nytecam]

Originally Posted by Amoeba

Can the light from a dying star appear and disappear in a second or two as it reaches us? It would be interesting if it was a dying star

I'd concede that nothing is impossible but to see a 'dying star' [whatever that is] lying on the pillow and gazing out of a narrow-view window is extremely unlikely.

As you probably know massive professional scopes both ground and space based are scanning the skies continually for newly appearing [supernova, variable stars] or moving objects [comets asteroids] and the chance for casual observers is zero.

To prevent misinformation about 'discoveries' professionals will ignore observations from the public unless purposely filtered first - thousands come in annually

[Amoeba]

Not zero. Very small, but not absolute zero.

But I guess it's not something we're going to figure out going by the responses. Irridium flare? Maybe, if they can show up bright and orange and stationary (idk if they can or not). But I don't know what a "tumbler" is so I can't say if it was that or not.

I don't know any of these fancy websites that display recent observations or anything so I hope maybe the time and place might help in identification, maybe it had already been observed and the info made available for those people who do have access to these fancy websites.