Thread: moving stars- what could this be?

Welcome to the forum.
Your description is typical of a satellite.
If you were to stay there longer you would spot more.

or possibly the international space station...



a friend of mine had a similar experience for several nights. he couldn't figure out why he could only see one star. turns out he was watching the space station. you can even see it through some cloud coverage. it usually is the brightest "star", being very close, but is small enough to appear distant.

Well, it was not the brightest star in the sky, it was faded and moving very slowy and rotating in circles, dissapered for a few seconds and re- appeared. When I lost sight of it I searched for more but there wern't any of stars of this kind! What to think!?

P.S It couldnt have been a space station, how can that move around like the star I saw? And how can it be a satellite? How can a satellite be as brigt as a STAR?

Originally Posted by ashashash

P.S It couldnt have been a space station, how can that move around like the star I saw? And how can it be a satellite? How can a satellite be as brigt as a STAR?

Satellites, are at a high enough altitude, to recieve sun rays as it passes overhead. The reflection, is enough to be equal to the brightness of many stars. The space station being much larger, gives a much greater reflection and appears brighter. They will fade away as they get lower on the horizon, due to distance and their moving into Earths shadow.

Originally Posted by SOUL-DRIFTER

Satellites, are at a high enough altitude, to recieve sun rays as it passes overhead. The reflection, is enough to be equal to the brightness of many stars. The space station being much larger, gives a much greater reflection and appears brighter. They will fade away as they get lower on the horizon, due to distance and their moving into Earths shadow.

correction you cannot mistake the iss for a star,there is a great level of light difference in brightness,.the ISS orbits once every 86 minutes.i have been star gazing for nealry twenty years,and never mistaken a star or an aircraft for somthing else.i have seen these moving stars,so has buzzz and oskar,so i do not doubt what you see.most of the light is relected from earth when these satellites pass through earths shadow,thus it will not be nowhere near as bright.

Originally Posted by ashashash

On August 1st 2008 at 9.35pm I was outside my house on the drive looking towards the horizon at the brightest star in the sky, this star is always there. Anyway, I started looking vertically above my head at the darker of the sky and it was full of stars that’s when I saw a MOVING star, this star was at the same level as the other stars *very high up*, but the odd thing is that it was moving slowly to the left then moving slowly to the right, I kept my eyes on it and my brother also saw this, we got very excited and nervous, the star was not flashing, but it was a more faded star. We saw lots of planes passing by and they were flashing red and white, we could tell that they were clearly planes, but we were freaked out by this moving star and we lost sight of it because my brother ran inside to call my mom, meanwhile I was outside staring at the moving star then I looked towards my mom and looked at the sky and lost sight of it because it faded away. I have never seen anything like this before and it was NOT a plane nor a satellite because this stars resembled all the other stars in the sky. The sky was pretty light near the horizon but higher up in the centre of the sky above my head it was dark.

I was camping at Eagle Lake, CA (northern CA). My wife saw the light, and it tripped us all out. We went down to the boat and grabbed the binoculars. (her brother and I did)

It lasted for about an hour, in the same place in the sky. It danced around the two stars in the sky. It defied physics. It would blink out then back on, then up then down, then back to the right then to the left. It was not in orbit, nor on an orbit around the earth. Kinda freaky. No sound, two high up. Same size as the stars, but red.

It was like someone was pointing a laser pointer on a movie theater screen, but with precision. Going up slow then fast, then to the left then to the right, then up then down. When we got the bino's, it was gone.

Three of us saw it. So I came back today and googled it. We went out last night, but didnt see it. I read the post on the ISS, however this could not have been in orbit. We would see things in orbit, but this was stationary until it decided to move.

I saw a plane pass by the light. I thought it was going after it, but it just passed by like no big deal. It was also to high up. The plane was at like 35 thousand feet. This seemed to be in space it self. It would pass by the same stars over and over and over. Didnt seem to have a pattern to it, however in the same general palce. It didnt fade into the horizon over time, it just stopped being in the sky. Like there for a minute then gone. It travelled pretty fast between those points in the sky. It also did circles. When it would go from left to right, there would be no pause. Not sure what it was, but we saw it too. We were facing north about 10pm (I think, cant remember). On the south shore of Eagle Lake CA, looking about 75 degrees from the horizon.

ash, no offense intended. just had to throw it out there.