Comet?? 7:10am this morning

Occidental · 12-02-2003 8:49am #1

Posted here as Astronomy is pre-modded at the moment

Driving through Killare(Westmeath) at about 7:10 this morning, bright white object with long tail, travelling low in the sky from West to South-East. Visible for about 4/5 seconds with small parts breaking off(with short tails) as it traveled. Same kind of intensity that you would get from a flare. Anyone know of anything strange out there this morning?

daveirl · 12-02-2003 9:01am

This post has been deleted.

Occidental · 12-02-2003 9:19am

Originally posted by daveirl
Shooting Star?

A comet wouldn't disappear like that.

Way too slow and way too bright. As I said it had the intensity of a flare.

arkles · 12-02-2003 9:40am

I saw it too at same time, i was travelling from Thurles to Limerick, weird it was, looked like a missile or a plane in trouble (it was heading towards earth)in the final second it seemed to break into two parts then whoosh disappeared,did it crash ?, the sky was clear blue just vanished into thin air before my eyes, very weird, glad someone else saw it, was getting worried about the dt's

Saruman · 12-02-2003 9:43am

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

It was a plane.. nothing else to it... Simply the exhause trail from a plane.. possibly even it had released some fuel before landing. You did not see a plane but those trails can be there for hours after the plane goes especially on an cold morning like today.

for instance driving home near Dublin Airport i saw 3 of them one on top of the other.. then i saw a fouth further up that had been hidden by a small cloud until just then, the setting sun gave them a bright red glow and they looked like they could be comets...

There has not been a comet close or bright enough to be seen in daylight for a long time..

Its like some of the people who see a UFO... if you look at a plane from a certain angle it looks like a floating saucer shaped object.

Occidental · 12-02-2003 10:08am

Originally posted by Saruman
Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

It was a plane.. nothing else to it... Simply the exhause trail from a plane.. possibly even it had released some fuel before landing. You did not see a plane but those trails can be there for hours after the plane goes especially on an cold morning like today.

for instance driving home near Dublin Airport i saw 3 of them one on top of the other.. then i saw a fouth further up that had been hidden by a small cloud until just then, the setting sun gave them a bright red glow and they looked like they could be comets...

There has not been a comet close or bright enough to be seen in daylight for a long time..

Its like some of the people who see a UFO... if you look at a plane from a certain angle it looks like a floating saucer shaped object.

Yes indeed Saruman, Oh dear. Aircraft do not travel across the entire sky is 4/5 seconds. They also hopefully do not have parts breaking away in front of your eyes. I know what a vapour trail from an aircraft looks like. I know what nav lights look like. I also know that vapour trails that you see while driving home near Dublin Airport have bugger all to do with Dublin Airport, as you'll normally have to be 30,000ft plus for vapour trails to occur. Now if you have any sensible, non-condescending thoughts I'd love to hear them.

Dr. Dre · 12-02-2003 10:17am

I saw it too, I'm in Dundalk.
Thought it was a cloud, I didn't really look at it all that long.

Occidental · 12-02-2003 10:36am

Right, maybe a few more thoughts.

My first impression was that it might have been the Ariane 4 rockets burning out, until I found out the launch had been delayed this morning. Other thoughts were a satellite burning up on re-entry.

Dr-Dre,

I got a good look at it, just before dawn in the middle of nowhere, so no light pollution or anything else to screw up the view. Arkles has obviously seen the same thing as myself, but unless you were looking through fog, I can't see how it could have looked like a cloud.

Sorry if I'm going on a bit, but this one has me intrigued.

arkles · 12-02-2003 11:26am

i forgot to mention that it was going so fast across the sky, on second thoughts it must be some sort of space debris ?,as it was going to fast to be man made, weirdest thing i have ever seen and im no chicken

Enygma · 12-02-2003 2:31pm

This was mentioned on the 2fm lunchtime news, some guy from Astronomy Ireland was on, seems to think it was a meteorite or something.
Apparantly it was spotted in Cork too!

Saruman · 12-02-2003 2:43pm

Originally posted by Occidental
Yes indeed Saruman, Oh dear. Aircraft do not travel across the entire sky is 4/5 seconds. They also hopefully do not have parts breaking away in front of your eyes. I know what a vapour trail from an aircraft looks like. I know what nav lights look like. I also know that vapour trails that you see while driving home near Dublin Airport have bugger all to do with Dublin Airport, as you'll normally have to be 30,000ft plus for vapour trails to occur. Now if you have any sensible, non-condescending thoughts I'd love to hear them.

Sorry if i offended Occidental but your post sounded exactly like what i described. You did not for instance say it travelled across the whole sky in 4/5 seconds, you simply said it was visible (to you i assumed) for 4/5 seconds). So i took it you saw something in an almost stationary position for 4/5 seconds before you lost sight of it!
As for the debris or bits you saw breaking off.. that could also be vapour trails until the rest of the posters started mentioning what they saw.

Especially if Astronomy Ireland is now involved it looks like its possibly something else. Maybe it was something burning up on re-entry or a meteor or something along those lines. So now im all curious.. i dont suppose some one was able to get a picture do you? Would be nice to see it...

Saruman · 12-02-2003 2:44pm

oooh.. constructive post here...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0212/meteorite.html

Samba · 12-02-2003 3:49pm

Im a going fragment hunting!

Wish I would get up early enough to see these things

Saruman · 12-02-2003 4:19pm

There was a piece of Irish Meteorite sold recently at auction.. If you knew how much a small fragment is worth i can tell you.. every one of us would be there hunting if we lived in the area and knew it landed on land. Mega money

irishgeo · 12-02-2003 4:22pm

Originally posted by Saruman
There was a piece of Irish Meteorite sold recently at auction.. If you knew how much a small fragment is worth i can tell you.. every one of us would be there hunting if we lived in the area and knew it landed on land. Mega money

Its in the RTE news report about the piece that was sold for €50,000.

It was seen in glaway as well heard it on the radio in the north west part of the sky.

Didnt see it myself.

Samba · 12-02-2003 4:54pm

We could make a Boards event of it!

Occidental · 12-02-2003 5:06pm

Excellent. After all these years of missing anything worth seeing due to crap weather.

Saruman,

Originally posted by Occidental
Visible for about 4/5 seconds with small parts breaking off(with short tails) as it traveled. Same kind of intensity that you would get from a flare.

If I thought the above was an aircraft, I'd be ringing the police and the local hospital, not posting it up on boards.

Enygma · 12-02-2003 7:54pm

I saw something else tonight at around 6:30-6:40. Was up by Cork Airport facing north and this light around the same size as a star just dropped in the sky. Straight down.
I've seen shooting stars before, loads of em, this wasn't a shooting star. It was way slower. Took about 2 seconds to disappear.

Were there any other sightings of this?

daveirl · 13-02-2003 12:58am

This post has been deleted.

Comet?? 7:10am this morning

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