La Manzanilla Message Board Archives

La Manzanilla Message Board Archives

Sparkly star

Posted by Mary. Jo on November 11, 2020, 12:12 am

Did anyone else see the large, multi-colored, sparkly star tonite about mid nite. It is under Orion’s Belt and just above the cross, from where I see it. It has now changed shape to a more normal star. Could it be the space station? It hasn’t moved from its position the whole time. The stars are beautiful tonight.

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Rick on November 11, 2020, 7:17 pm, in reply to "Sparkly star"

The International Space Station is not in a geo-stationary orbit, rather it is moving across the sky, and is only visible a maximum of about 6 minutes from just after sundown or sunrise to about an hour later, or earlier... it has to be in sunshine when you're not. If the 'star' is slightly reddish it could be the planet Mars which is close to it's 2 year closest parallel transition as earth passes Mars on it's yearly orbit around the sun.

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/tracking_map.cfm

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Mary Jo on November 12, 2020, 11:02 am, in reply to "Re: Sparkly star"

Thanks Rick. It was very interesting and fun to speculate what it was.

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Dan Patman on November 12, 2020, 1:18 pm, in reply to "Re: Sparkly star"

I have a great (but hefty sized) app on my iPad called night sky.

I can go into my garden and as long as i am in range of my wifi i can turn on the AR (augmented reality) and move the screen around and see what objects are. It is pretty accurate and has answered a few doubts we have had.

I am sure there is an android equivalent out there too but this is the one i have.

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Jean on November 12, 2020, 1:31 pm, in reply to "Re: Sparkly star"

I have that on my phone. You don’t have to go outside to see the night sky, I watch it when I can’t sleep.
Fascinating!

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Jean on November 12, 2020, 1:33 pm, in reply to "Re: Sparkly star"

I also use planets

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Leslie on November 15, 2020, 3:32 pm, in reply to "Re: Sparkly star"

I also observed this very unusual light and photographed it with a telefoto lens. It looked very colorful like a prism and each color appeared separated in the images. LMK and I can forward the images.

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Re: Sparkly star

Posted by Mary Jo on November 20, 2020, 9:33 am, in reply to "Sparkly star"

Thanks Leslie, Your fotos seemed to see it like it was. The colors didn´t last long when it returned to a sparkly star again. It happened too fast to get my star app out of my phone. Interesting in all our experinces of the times.

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