Strange Sighting Skies Over Donegal Town 8th Jan 2010

rudedog

Hi,

did anyone else notice anything strange over the sky in Donegal Town tonight between around 8:30pm and 8:40pm?

I have seen many meteors and satellites etc in my time but i have never seen anything like this tonight.

It was a fireball moving slowly for approx. 5 minutes across the sky from east to west. It appeared to stop overhead for around 30 seconds and the fireball died out and it spun in circles for some time. It then continued to the west over the bay without any illumination. You could still see its outline when the fireball went out, it was a light grey in colour and appeared to be spinning around and was rectangular in shape through binoculars.

Would be very interested to hear if anyone else seen this and if anyone could offer a logical explanation. I have read about lanterns that can sometimes be seen as fireballs http://www.astronomy.ie/lanterns.html. Not too sure if it was one of these though, it appeared to be extremely high up in the atmosphere and had a very strong fireball effect for some minutes before going out. Also it appeared to be quite large in size considering the altitude of it.

Cheers

Harps

International Space Station possibly?

North_West_Art

I have seen the space station alot passing over Donegal and it doesnt stop, it cant really while its in orbit. The lanterns dont produce this kind of glow either.

rudedog

Harps wrote: »

International Space Station possibly?

Hi there, no it wasn't IIS anyway as i checked that when i got back into the house on heavens-above.com to see where it was, but its pass tonight did not coincide with times, direction, magnitude or altitude from the horizon.

I have seen the IIS many times before and it never looked like this.

Very odd indeed. Weather balloon perhaps burning up in the atmosphere? Just a thought?

Thanks for the suggestion.

rudedog

North_West_Art wrote: »

I have seen the space station alot passing over Donegal and it doesnt stop, it cant really while its in orbit. The lanterns dont produce this kind of glow either.

Hi, yes you are correct, IIS is normally a white dot that gradually gets brigher in magnitude then fades away again, the speed and the type of light were not consistent with IIS at all. It had a really fireball orange glow from it with a small trail behind it as it travelled across the sky. If it was travelling faster i would have thought it was a metor, as i have seen large orange fireball meteor's in the past, but this was travelling so slooowww, and like i said earlier it appeared to stop for around 30 seconds directly overhead before falling down to the west over Donegal Bay.

Cheers.

mamakevf

Could be a fighter jet with its afterburners being turned on, used for massive acceleration on take off and when trying get away quickly from enemy fire after dropping bombs on a target.

mukki

rudedog wrote: »

it appeared to be extremely high up in the atmosphere

Also it appeared to be quite large in size considering the altitude of it.

...

Fr Ted wrote:

...OK, one last time. These are small... but the ones out there are far away. Small... far away... ah forget it!

Local-womanizer

Naw,sure a jet wouldent have a chance to get past the advanced radar warning system and the SAM sites situated around Donegal town. Unless it was a plane being shot down in that case we should be out to capture the communist.

TJJP

Any chance it was an Aurora or such given the northern weather and winds we're having? I doubt Donegal is north enough, but why not.

Might be worth posting this on the astronomy forum too, they are pretty helpful in these matters.

mamakevf

Local-womanizer wrote: »

Naw,sure a jet wouldent have a chance to get past the advanced radar warning system and the SAM sites situated around Donegal town. Unless it was a plane being shot down in that case we should be out to capture the communist.

:D

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

josey_whale

TJJP wrote: »

Any chance it was an Aurora or such given the northern weather and winds we're having? I doubt Donegal is north enough, but why not.

Might be worth posting this on the astronomy forum too, they are pretty helpful in these matters.

It more than likely was the Aurora.

Mint Sauce

first the earth quake, now this, might be time to dig out the hard hats

ednwireland

chinese lanterns seem to cause a lot of these sightings see the astronomy forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055680424

LoanShark

josey_whale wrote: »

It more than likely was the Aurora.

What about Uranus?

Hootanany

LoanShark wrote: »

What about Uranus?

What about yours:cool:

North_West_Art

Groan.....

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

irish1967

http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie

it even mentions this thread and quotes it.

rudedog

I see that this even made the Democrat today! They are desperate for stories aren't they!

Since the original post someone told me that these chinese lanterns have been on sale around the town somewhere of late. Does anyone know anything about this?

I am thinking that this is possibly the most likely explanation. I am a keen amateur astronomer of some 15 years and am familiar with fireballs and have seen them on many many occasions down through the years, i agree that the amount of time this was visible was not consistent with a meteorite or fireball. However i am told by my friend that when they spotted it initially it was travelling at great speed, which would have suggested that it was indeed a meteor, and this is not consistent with the chinese lantern theory.

I do have a 1 minute 11 second video clip of the object on my phone as it moved across the sky from directly overhead towards Donegal Bay, however it had burned out before i began to video it, and was a dark grey colour. A friend, who spotted it first and alerted me to it, says it was visible for at least 3 minutes before i began to video it. This demonstrates that it was indeed overhead for approx. 4-5 minutes.

I am going to try to enhance the video as the quality is really bad and the phone didn't really pick it up that well. Will post if i get it cleaned up, may provide more clues to the big mystery!!!

Cheers.

ednwireland

see astronomy ireland never miss a trick to try and make money !