An UFO And An Explanation You May Not Believe
On my Facebook last week I told about a mysterious bright light that became visible as daylight slipped away. In the interest of brevity(!) I had omitted some important details. This more detailed account may explain why I dismissed your suggestions out of hand.
Like most amateur astronomers I have a fairly good idea of what should be in the night sky at any given time of the year. This thing didn't belong there.
Only the moon and the newcomer were visible at that point.
I watched it for more than 8 minutes and it seemed to not move around as seen by eyeball during that time. I was using the moon and terrain as points of reference.
While gazing at it I considered the possibility that it was an airplane at very high altitude, the space station, some other satellite, a rocket launch, a rocket booster breaking up, a meteor. I've seen all these things and t'weren't them. The not moving thing made all of these non-starters. Though it was as bright as Venus or Jupiter, I knew that they are both in the morning sky now. I also considered the extremely remote possibility that I was seeing a nova blooming. They happen, but are only seen a time or two per millennia. ( In my head-"The 2012 Noble Prize for Science goes goes to Professor Long John Skivee for his discovery of Skivey's Nova-SN2011A"...they always spell my name wrong)
Eventually I remembered that an excellent Celestron 8" telescope was inside (D'OH!). I got it, and had to take a few moments setting it up. (as a side note, Martha Stewart patio tables makes a crappy platform for a telescope at 160x)
The telescope had to be set-up (setting various mechanical aspects, focusing the finder scope, focusing the main scope, checking that they were aligned properly) while aimed at the moon...a reliable target. This took maybe a minute and a half. Then I moved the scope over and up to the bright spot.
I acquired it in the finder, then moved to the main eyepiece. The scope was bouncing around quite a bit because of the flexibility of the table top. In a very brief glance it looked a bit like a tiny white-ish sphere with the middle darker and the edges slightly lighter. Since catadioptric lenses are well known to make out of focus subject look like spheres or doughnuts, I took my eyes off the eyepiece to locate the focus knob to focus more carefully. Something happened to the thing in that brief moment, because by the time I looked back in the eyepiece it had broken into dozens of bright spots with lots of other little bits around them. They began to fall at an increasing rate, with some bits falling faster that the main "swarm". It rather reminded me of a slow-motion version those shuttle Columbia break-up films but with vertical travel. Over about 1/2 minute the bits scattered down, and soon I couldn't any trace. Cue Theramin music.
On Friday I discussed the matter with a Public Affairs guy I know at a nearby NASA facility We kicked it around for a bit, and after tossing out versions of the suggestions above he suggested that my UFO was a weather balloon sighting. Far enough up, I would not have seen apparent motion, looking like a tiny sphere because that's what it was, bright against the darkening evening sky because they are a pearly looking plastic-rubber. They have a fair amount of slop in the shape at lower altitudes, but expand to a sphere as they rise. Eventually they pop like...a balloon, and the Styrofoam cased science package drops away. It looks like I had just happened to see it at around the instant that it popped. The only thing that is bothersome is that a ballon might be expected to pop, then form into a big ol' floppy blob as it fell. Perhaps at altitude, it's cold enough that the rubber sorta shattered when the balloon popped.
This explanation isn't perfect, but I think it's the most likely...unless you don't trust a NASA guy suggesting that my UFO sighting was a weather balloon. I do. No, Really. Everything is fine. It was just a weather balloon. Now you just go to sleep and when you awake, all of those bothersome human emotions won't trouble you anymore. Sleep and you'll be one of us...one of us...one of us.
Like most amateur astronomers I have a fairly good idea of what should be in the night sky at any given time of the year. This thing didn't belong there.
Only the moon and the newcomer were visible at that point.
I watched it for more than 8 minutes and it seemed to not move around as seen by eyeball during that time. I was using the moon and terrain as points of reference.
While gazing at it I considered the possibility that it was an airplane at very high altitude, the space station, some other satellite, a rocket launch, a rocket booster breaking up, a meteor. I've seen all these things and t'weren't them. The not moving thing made all of these non-starters. Though it was as bright as Venus or Jupiter, I knew that they are both in the morning sky now. I also considered the extremely remote possibility that I was seeing a nova blooming. They happen, but are only seen a time or two per millennia. ( In my head-"The 2012 Noble Prize for Science goes goes to Professor Long John Skivee for his discovery of Skivey's Nova-SN2011A"...they always spell my name wrong)
Eventually I remembered that an excellent Celestron 8" telescope was inside (D'OH!). I got it, and had to take a few moments setting it up. (as a side note, Martha Stewart patio tables makes a crappy platform for a telescope at 160x)
The telescope had to be set-up (setting various mechanical aspects, focusing the finder scope, focusing the main scope, checking that they were aligned properly) while aimed at the moon...a reliable target. This took maybe a minute and a half. Then I moved the scope over and up to the bright spot.
I acquired it in the finder, then moved to the main eyepiece. The scope was bouncing around quite a bit because of the flexibility of the table top. In a very brief glance it looked a bit like a tiny white-ish sphere with the middle darker and the edges slightly lighter. Since catadioptric lenses are well known to make out of focus subject look like spheres or doughnuts, I took my eyes off the eyepiece to locate the focus knob to focus more carefully. Something happened to the thing in that brief moment, because by the time I looked back in the eyepiece it had broken into dozens of bright spots with lots of other little bits around them. They began to fall at an increasing rate, with some bits falling faster that the main "swarm". It rather reminded me of a slow-motion version those shuttle Columbia break-up films but with vertical travel. Over about 1/2 minute the bits scattered down, and soon I couldn't any trace. Cue Theramin music.
On Friday I discussed the matter with a Public Affairs guy I know at a nearby NASA facility We kicked it around for a bit, and after tossing out versions of the suggestions above he suggested that my UFO was a weather balloon sighting. Far enough up, I would not have seen apparent motion, looking like a tiny sphere because that's what it was, bright against the darkening evening sky because they are a pearly looking plastic-rubber. They have a fair amount of slop in the shape at lower altitudes, but expand to a sphere as they rise. Eventually they pop like...a balloon, and the Styrofoam cased science package drops away. It looks like I had just happened to see it at around the instant that it popped. The only thing that is bothersome is that a ballon might be expected to pop, then form into a big ol' floppy blob as it fell. Perhaps at altitude, it's cold enough that the rubber sorta shattered when the balloon popped.
This explanation isn't perfect, but I think it's the most likely...unless you don't trust a NASA guy suggesting that my UFO sighting was a weather balloon. I do. No, Really. Everything is fine. It was just a weather balloon. Now you just go to sleep and when you awake, all of those bothersome human emotions won't trouble you anymore. Sleep and you'll be one of us...one of us...one of us.