Very bright geo satellite in my night sky?

[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/

 

[Eleonora]

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

Absolutely. Second best explanation to aliens. After all, the Russian name I was born with (Eleonora Strelnikova) translates to Eleanor Arroway and the brightest star I see out of my windows facing east is Vega ;-)

Don't think this is getting anywhere and since there is apparently no way to delete my account here: Thanks everyone who genuinely tried to help me.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm sure everyone here was legitimately trying to help, but as the saying goes, PF can only help those who help themselves.

I'll lock the thread here since it seems to have run its course.