Flashbulb

[davo27]

Date: Wednesday 11 October
Time: Approx 9PM
Location: Pukemokemoke Reserve, New Zealand. Looking South East towards Morrinsville. https://maps.app.goo.gl/hrYfDRrfr3W115Zh8

Hi all, (perhaps former) rational, atheist, sceptic here - who's been captured by the UFO topic. Hoping you may be able to help me with this 'flashbulb' sighting.

Wednesday night, went on a CE5 outing with 2 others, with whom I've formed a group. One of these two has very frequent spontaneous flashbulb sightings at his rural home without any type of CE5 'process' being followed. I'm no fan of Steven Greer, but we used one of the meditations on his app as a starting point. It was a little ridiculous, droning on about wolves and apples or something, but while I was trying to stick with it, one of the others (the regular sighter - evidently having given up with the meditation) cried "Flashbulb!" We looked up to where he was pointing, but saw nothing. We kept sky watching and talking for a while, but didn't see anything else.

After a while, we spotted some cloud cover coming through, but figured it would pass quickly as it was quite windy, so we thought we'd try another Greer-guided meditation. It was a bit shorter and more effective for achieving a semi-meditative state.

We finished, and started looking at the sky. After just a few minutes, we again heard "Flashbulb" from the same person, pointing to the same part of the sky (he'd used a strong laser pointer both times). After about another 30 seconds, we all saw the same thing. We were in a rural area with no light pollution, and the sky was very clear with amazing visibility of the stars. This 'flashbulb' flashed for approximately half a second to a second, was the size of a star, or possibly slightly larger, was approximately 3 to 4 times brighter than any star in the sky, and about 30 degrees up in the sky (from our high vantage on a hill). About a minute later it flashed again, but with reduced intensity. While 'flash' is a good description, it also looked like a directed beam of light from a really long distance (ie. no 'beam' visible, but that sort of appearance of focussed light or glare.)

The others saw a few more over the next 15 minutes, but in different parts of the sky.

So - one half of me was pretty excited to have seen this, the other half is looking for a down to earth explanation. I've ruled all of the obvious things out, but the things that stand out for me that I can't explain are:

- the flashes I saw were in exactly the same place as had been spotted about half an hour previously,
- the flashes I saw were in an unchanged spot, separated by about a minute,
- we saw plenty of satellites - no comparison,
- the others saw exactly the same thing - but a little dimmer - in other parts of the sky,
- other than the very first appearance, all of these sightings happened in a 10 - 15 minute window,
- I spend plenty of time looking at the sky, but have *never* seen this. And it happened right when we half expected to see it, having gone looking for it (well - I actually wanted to see a space ship land in front of me, but you know...),
- while something that looks like a star, only 3 to 4 times brighter (or less) sounds pretty unremarkable, when it happened, visually, it was a pretty amazing 'holy shit, look at that!' kinda moment.

While the event seemed pretty special because of the inexplicable nature - it wasn't 'spectacular' - it was a very small light in the sky. But I can't figure it out. Clearly I've been a little taken by the woo, so I'm a little biased in my thinking, but I am here looking to rule the woo out. I don't think any of the regular answers (plane, satellite, planet, flare) are going to fit, but maybe there's something I'm not thinking about?

 

[JMartJr]

- we saw plenty of satellites - no comparison,

What you are describing sounds very similar to satellite flares -- not what you see as a constantly illuminated satellite goes past, but what happens when a satellite with a reflective surface happens to reflect a beam of light to where you are on the ground. You might want to look at several threads about "racetrack UFOs" and "starlink flares" here, or check for vids of satellite flares on YouTube, see if you find anything that is helpful to you.

Edit to add, seeing repeated instances in more or less the same spot would make sense for Starlink flares, as one satellite from the same group follows another, and reaches the correct angle to flare for you.

 

[davo27]

Do you think 4 times in exactly the same place (well, *apparently* the same place) fits into that? Two observations in quick succession, and then two more 25 to 30 minutes later? As well as that, a few more of these observations were made in different parts of the sky within a 20 - 30 minute period. This seems like a lot to me, mostly because I look at the sky a lot, and have never seen anything like this. (Admittedly, never seen a flare before).

The observations were a maximum of one second, and then 100% gone. We saw a lot of satellites, including some that were extremely faint and only just perceptible. I agree that a flare sounds like a reasonable explanation, but it doesn't seem to fit because of the overly co-incidental timing (ie. start looking, see something within 2 minutes), the total lack of visibility before or after the flash, the observations *appeared* to be of a static object, and these combined factors repeating approximately 7 times.

Does the south easterly aspect of the observation point toward or away from this being a flare? Although at least one of the observations was also in the south west...

While this occasion was different, anecdotally, a lot of these observations seem to be made in the vicinity of Orion.

Would it be likely with a starlink flare, that the satellite would be 100% invisible to the eye outside of a 1 second flare period?

We're planning to continue these sessions - what are useful suggestions for things we could be doing to help rule flares in or out?

 

[flarkey]

Flashes tend to come from tumbling satellites, rather than flares. They can seem to move very slowly access the night sky. I've seen them frequently and they do indeed look very strange.


Source: https://youtu.be/VgqHKIiYRoM?si=2lFfmmVshcQKVOaf

 

[davo27]

Flashes tend to come from tumbling satellites, rather than flares. They can seem to move very slowly access the night sky. I've seen them frequently and they do indeed look very strange.


Source: https://youtu.be/VgqHKIiYRoM?si=2lFfmmVshcQKVOaf

Hmm... I'd say the starlink train flares would be a closer fit. A tumbling satellite wouldn't be seen in the same position 25 minutes later, or just twice in quick succession and then disappear? How about intensity (3 or 4 times brighter than anything else in the sky), and the seeming focused quality of the light? (Admittedly that could have been in my head.)

 

[davo27]

What you are describing sounds very similar to satellite flares -- not what you see as a constantly illuminated satellite goes past, but what happens when a satellite with a reflective surface happens to reflect a beam of light to where you are on the ground. You might want to look at several threads about "racetrack UFOs" and "starlink flares" here, or check for vids of satellite flares on YouTube, see if you find anything that is helpful to you.

View attachment 63444

Edit to add, seeing repeated instances in more or less the same spot would make sense for Starlink flares, as one satellite from the same group follows another, and reaches the correct angle to flare for you.

Is there a website that provides retrospective flare visibility data? ie. could I plug in time and location and get information about what flares would have been visible?

 

[JMartJr]

Flashes tend to come from tumbling satellites, rather than flares.

Want to be better informed, so asking: Is a tumbling satellite creating flashes not flaring (or might it be) as it tumbles along? And is there a source for user-friendly info on when to see one... I would like to, and it might be useful to davo27 for comparison purposes.

 

[davo27]

Want to be better informed, so asking: Is a tumbling satellite creating flashes not flaring (or might it be) as it tumbles along? And is there a source for user-friendly info on when to see one... I would like to, and it might be useful to davo27 for comparison purposes.

Seems to me as though it would flash. If it's visible while stable in an orbit, but the tumbling obscures the reflective surfaces (or causes the reflection to be directed away from earth), that would seem to look like flashing. And on the odd occasion, it would most likely flare as well. Possibly more frequently (but with shorter duration) than stable satellites, if the tumbling gives it a greater chance to catch the right angle for a flare?

 

[davo27]

Seems to me as though it would flash. If it's visible while stable in an orbit, but the tumbling obscures the reflective surfaces (or causes the reflection to be directed away from earth), that would seem to look like flashing. And on the odd occasion, it would most likely flare as well. Possibly more frequently (but with shorter duration) than stable satellites, if the tumbling gives it a greater chance to catch the right angle for a flare?

So, in regard to my observation, to be a tumbling satellite; it would have to be in very close to a geo-stationary orbit (given the approx. 25 minute gap in observations), have at least one *highly* reflective surface (apparent magnitude vs. distance to g.s. orbit), and be in a peculiar (multi-axis?) tumble that brought its reflective surface(s) into very irregular visibility - very briefly highly frequent, then suddenly low frequency.

Given the anecdotal frequency of these sightings (which I can't vouch for), there would also have to be quite a number of satellites that fall into these criteria.

 

[JMartJr]

; it would have to be in very close to a geo-stationary orbit (given the approx. 25 minute gap in observations

Or, potentially, they're like the proverbial streetcar... and there's another one along shortly.

 

[davo27]

Or, potentially, they're like the proverbial streetcar... and there's another one along shortly.

Wouldn't that make the situation more complicated? In that these are in a subset of tumbling satellites (already a small group) that are - for whatever reason - visible incredibly briefly, and then gone.

Does anyone know how many tumbling satellites are out there?

 

[davo27]

Found this link Flarkey has previously provided: https://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/tumbling-satellites

It seems to show in photographs that tumbling satellites leave tracks - indicating that their movement should be apparent with the naked eye?

Apologies if I'm getting any of this wrong - pretty new to this area. I gather that there are a number of specialists here...

 

[davo27]

JMartJr - found this post you made a month ago:

Let's assume for a moment, for the sake of discussion, that it is in fact not a plane, satellite or star. That does not then mean it has to be something unknown and mysterious. Could be a drone, for example. Or something else. And of course it may eventually turn out to be a plane not yet identified.​

​

Posting here and asking folks to help identify something does not mean you will necessarily get an exact answer (and if you do, it may be awhile before it comes up). Somebody explaining why there may not be sufficient data to identify what you saw exactly is not an "excuse."​

​

I agree.

I'm super conflicted about this CE5 thing (and don't even get me started on Greer...). Went out to see something, saw it. Obviously not proof of anything, but it is data that supports a hypothesis. How do we refine this further? We're planning more outings, and I want to do everything I can to remove confirmation bias. I'm first in line to want to know if I've been fooled.

We're planning on continuing to use the same location, is that a good or bad idea? Are there predictions anyone could make that would be reasonably expected? ie. Is it fair to expect to regularly have this type of observation inside a defined time window? I'd have thought not given that it seemed an incredibly unusual observation to me. What are the types of variables that could be thrown in to eliminate as much noise as possible (statistical likelihood of repeated misidentifications of drone/plane/anything else).

If I used a flare forecasting site prior to going out, would that be sufficient to anticipate an expectation of no observations, or are things like tumbling satellites not part of those catalogues?

I'm pretty pumped about this either way - flash bulbs seem to be a thing with the UFO set. If I could debunk them, that'd be a great result - I don't want to believe in nonsense. If they're real, significant, and frequent observations that can't be explained - I think that's a pretty big result too, regardless of whether they're spooky, or a new type of physical phenomenon that's not known about.

It really feels like there's *something* there, and I'm hoping that this is the crowd that might be able to help crack it. If someone's going out in the field to do this stuff, I'd be stoked if you guys could pitch in with some suggestions to make the time worthwhile.

 

[JMartJr]

Providing more data would lead to more/better answers... or at least to a chance if them. Exactly when/where were this or future sightings, in what part of the sky or at least in what general direction, that style of thing. You've done that well with your opening post... so mostly mentioning it for the benefit of future posters who read this thread. But the more exact the better -- what constellation it appeared in would be great, for example, or exact times or compass bearings. I understand that sort of detail-tracking might not feel compatible with experiencing a CE5 evening, but as you are interested in seeing if it is explicable that sort of stuff is helpful.

My own area if expertise, "tethered aerodynes," does not seem a likely explanation for what you saw so I'll try and bow out now and leave the floor open to folks with knowledge that is more likely to be relevant!

(Meanwhile I'm off to look through old pics and relive memories of visiting NZ... lovely country and wonderfully warm and welcoming people!)

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

You would serve yourself well by learning the night sky. Learn the constellations and the names of the stars. It's a worthwhile hobby in itself. Also you don't need to start with a telescope. Even the smallest set of binoculars will show you things you've never seen. If you do go for a telescope, go for a six inch dobsonian. Don't fool around with those little refractors. And don't get too much scope, at first. You might want to think of getting a rich field.

Subject at hand; your descriptions of the night sky, and times and directions are much too vague to be of much use. For instance you talk about the SE sky at 9:00 and also about Orion. But Orion wasn't visible at 9:00 so you must be talking 11:00 and later... in the ENE sky.

If you could say say something like, "Right next to Achernar at 9:11," we might get somewhere.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

This video is a good start to understanding satellites.


It's not simple, I'm afraid. Complications are debris, tumbling rocket bodies and uncontrolled satellites. These could be responsible for a flash or two, and not very predictable.

 

[DaveG]

These are tumbling satellites, as Flarkey already mentioned. Defunct satellites either have a controlled tumbling motion or an uncontrolled tumbling motion and can either display periodic flashes, e.g., once every few seconds to every minute or so, and usually fade as they do so, or be totally random. There used to be a website a few years ago called calsky.com that tracked a number of these tumbling satellites and relied on users to give updates on intensity, peroidicity, and so on. One notable satellite I used to observe often was the Hitomi ASTRO-H, or New X-ray Telescope (NeXT). It failed soon after launch and now flashes quite brightly when passing directly overhead. But there are so many defunct satellites out there that any one has the potential to flash, given the right conditions. I found one such satellite (globalstar) flashing one night and noticed it was flashing as it was just passing into the earth's shadow. The next night I decided to track it with a telescope, and as it began its trajectory over head, it didn't display any flashing, but when it started to approach the penumbra in the eastern sky, it began to flash, so much so that I took my eye away from the telescope and could clearly observe it with my naked eye. Another was a geostationary satellite where the flashes were quite dim, and using a telescope, one didn't need to move the telescope at all as it was in geostationary orbit. Both satellites did appear stationary to the naked eye, but even though Globalstar was moving, its orbit is very high and its movement across the sky slower than most lower satellites, so flashes every few seconds can give the illusion of being stationary.

 

[FatPhil]

View attachment 63444

That's truly horrible. Some of the rays looked like they were bouncing off the normal?! How much backspin is the sun putting on those photons?

 

[Trailblazer]

I was camping in a dark area last weekend and was watching the stars for an hour or two. I saw several bright satellite flashes in very similar parts of the sky. When your eyes are dark adapted you can often see a faint moving light, which then gives one or more bright flashes as the sun catches it - but sometimes the flashes seem to come out of nowhere.

 

[davo27]

Really appreciate all the feedback - useful stuff! Lots of plausible explanations, but so far, nothing that seems to rule anything in or out.

Would a flare from a tumbling or non tumbling satellite appear 3-4 times brighter than anything else in the sky? Another thing I considered is that we started our outing not too long after sunset - prime satellite viewing/flaring conditions right? Will have to look at trying times when we're completely in shadow. That being said, the bloke who has many of his own sightings, says he often sees them in the middle of the night when he gets up. Are geo-stationary satellites visible/flaring while we're in umbra?

Are there any statisticians out there who may be able to hazard a guess on how many flares/flashes should be visible on average at any given time? Given the discussion about untracked debris, it seems that it may be too difficult to rule this class of object out (unless someone can discount them because of the magnitude of the observed flashes) through observation alone.

Would repeated/excessive observations outside of statistical likelihood point to an unusual phenomenon?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Would a flare from a tumbling or non tumbling satellite appear 3-4 times brighter than anything else in the sky?

Sure, why not? The specular reflection of the Sun off a makeup mirror looks damn bright miles away during the daytime. It's a reflection of ... the Sun.

And what about the Moon? How bright is that? The moon has two strikes against it. The surface is rough so we only get a diffuse reflection of the Sun, and it's dark. Something like Coco Puffs.

Another thing I considered is that we started our outing not too long after sunset - prime satellite viewing/flaring conditions right? Will have to look at trying times when we're completely in shadow.

We? As in humans on the surface of the planet? Not the question. Question that's relevant is, is the satellite in the umbra or penumbra? Depends, doesn't it? The Moon is hardly ever in either and that's a satellite.

That being said, the bloke who has many of his own sightings, says he often sees them in the middle of the night when he gets up. Are geo-stationary satellites visible/flaring while we're in umbra?

Confused question. Is the satellite in shadow? Depends. I'll pass that off to someone who knows more about satellites, rocket bodies and debris.

Are there any statisticians out there who may be able to hazard a guess on how many flares/flashes should be visible on average at any given time? Given the discussion about untracked debris, it seems that it may be too difficult to rule this class of object out (unless someone can discount them because of the magnitude of the observed flashes) through observation alone.

Would repeated/excessive observations outside of statistical likelihood point to an unusual phenomenon?

Where would you get the data to do the analysis? There are too many untracked objects and/or objects with irregular surfaces rotating in unknown ways.

The simplest way of looking at it is that there's a lot of stuff up there. Specular reflections off stuff in orbit is an entirely adequate explanation.

Why people go ape over stuff they see up in the sky is a psychological question.

Salience (also called saliency) is that property by which some thing stands out. Salient events are an attentional mechanism by which organisms learn and survive; those organisms can focus their limited perceptual and cognitive resources on the pertinent (that is, salient) subset of the sensory data available to them.

Saliency typically arises from contrasts between items and their neighborhood.

Some people have a greater (or hugely exaggerated) tendency (or need) to seek salience and have a more emotional reaction.

Salience bias (also referred to as perceptual salience) is a cognitive bias that predisposes individuals to focus on or attend to items, information, or stimuli that are more prominent, visible,[14] or emotionally striking. This is as opposed to stimuli that are unremarkable, or less salient, even though this difference is often irrelevant by objective standards.

Another way to think about it is that some people are completely blase and others try to find meaning in things that really aren't meaningful. They need meaning and find the mundane actively distasteful. Most people are in between. The good old bell curve.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Just throwing out ideas here. Driving home last night I noticed a bright glowing light in the sky and similar though dimmer lights in the same direction. Some of them appeared and then disappeared.

It took minute, but I realized they were commercial aircraft lining up for their approach to the airport I had just left. They were too far to see their nav and marker lights, but the landing lights were clearly visible as a single white "orb" in the sky. The further off planes were decreasingly fainter.

But the light was only visible when the aircraft were heading at me. As they turned the light was directed away for me and they disappeared.

Now in your case, what if a few distant planes were turning such that for a short period of time their light were pointed right at you. They're too far off to hear or see the nav and marker lights. Just the landing lights appear for a brief time as the plane makes a turn.

There are a number of aerodromes in the area (some are just off the map), with some in the south east direction like Matamata:

This area is fairly busy during the day, like today:

Not sure what it's like at night. Again, just trying some ideas.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Like, but they'd be low on the horizon.

 

[davo27]

Mr Wolf: tough crowd! I thought I was pedantic with speech. But yes, of course you're correct - satellites, not us in shadow.

Where would you get the data to do the analysis? There are too many untracked objects and/or objects with irregular surfaces rotating in unknown ways.

I'm not exactly sure. New to thinking about this type of thing. I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that flares would be visible with similar frequency just about anywhere on earth? If so, a dozen or so sky watches should give a reasonable sample of how many flares could be expected to be seen, if there's not data out there already?

Salience bias, or something similar is exactly why I'm having a conversation here, and not in some Facebook group that's going to credulously congratulate me for making contact with interdimensional brethren. That being said, I think there's a possibility there may be something in it.

Again - I've been taken by this topic. I'm on your team with every other type of debunking on this website. A few years ago I thought the UFO issue was a crackpot one as well. That is to say - I'm open to possibility with this one issue, but my critical attitude hasn't otherwise changed, and if this turns out to be not what I've assumed it might be - I'm fine with that.

I agree that prima facie, all the explanations that have been provided here so far are very plausible. I'm not convinced by them, because of the excessive coincidences that I perceive, but I consider that as a weighting towards my suspicions, rather than proof, or a conclusion. 7 or 8 flare sightings in half an hour does *sound* like a lot, doesn't it?

And while all of the provided explanations are plausible, that doesn't confirm them as an accurate conclusion of what we saw - it simply makes them a likely possibility.

The other nagging doubts I have are the 4 observations repeating in the same place, and the fact that all of the observations were flashes or flares only, without any other visibility of the satellite before or after the flash. I appreciate that explanations for these types of observations have been provided above, but I am inferring that these explanations provide for types of observations of tumbling satellites that fall outside what would be normally expected - meaning that not only did we witness a very large number of flares for the time period, they were also all unusual types of flares to have been observed. The chances of observation of this grouping seem to me to be fairly low.

But I'm not familiar enough with this area or statistics to be solid in my assessment - hence wondering if there are any statisticians who would be able to helpfully contribute.

Presumably, if I'm on track with my assessment that there are pretty long odds on tumbling satellites being the answer to what we saw, repeat performances of such long-odds observations would be significant?

 

[davo27]

Just throwing out ideas here. Driving home last night I noticed a bright glowing light in the sky and similar though dimmer lights in the same direction. Some of them appeared and then disappeared.

Possible, but I tend to think not - I'm familiar with what you're talking about, and with planes' low rate of turn, you tend to get a fading in and out of light intensity, rather than a short sharp flash. As ZW points out, all of our observations were high in the sky.

And, bro: it's New Zealand. I'd be surprised if Matamata had more than 6000 people in it. I did a skydive at that aerodrome years ago - mostly it's a few gliders and some farmer hobbyist fliers.

We did see one small aircraft, but nav lights etc., it was very obvious.

 

[davo27]

As ZW points out, all of our observations were high in the sky.

Apologies - as ZW points out, the landing lights would be low on the horizon...

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

If you want to find out what it is you're really seeing, it's going to take some work.

Some work went into this:

Source: https://youtu.be/rUqsaa4gRJk?si=lxiAFHahuHeRay7B&t=27

The rocket body seems to have a regular rotation around a minor axis. It's probably not making specular reflections but bright diffuse reflections from white paint. The difference in brightness, I'm guessing, is how much of the surface we are seeing at each moment, as it tumbles.

Here are some things to consider.

Specular reflection vs diffuse reflection: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/reflection-of-the-sunlight-on-water.8324/#post-198671

You have to get just the right angle. Specular reflections of off water/glitter patterns: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/reflection-of-the-sunlight-on-water.8324/#post-198668


Panels on satellites:

Irregular objects that mostly produce diffuse reflections, but have some surfaces that produce specular reflections. Watch for the specular reflections of the Sun:
Source: https://youtu.be/SOQBl09QGSk?si=pP1h_s_WO8PfpdnZ&t=1524
What's flashing are the plexiglass windows and the rubber de-icing boots (or the shiny surface after the boots were removed, maybe). Poor boys, btw.

The Dzhanibekoh Effect:


Source: https://youtu.be/vklY1bHIi1I?si=0ocfw4NgOStUt3fb

Bonus in this YT video is the specular reflections from the reflective surface of the wingnut.

We never do see a flash from the wingnut itself, because the angles never line up just right.

But what we do see is bright spots on the wood. They're diffuse reflections and weak specular reflections from the semi-gloss surface of the wood... of the specular reflections of the Sun off the surface of the wingnut.


Seeing: If you're looking at something just on the edge of visibility, naked eye, there may be apparent changes in brightness that are really caused by turbulence in the atmosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_seeing

In astronomy, seeing is the degradation of the image of an astronomical object due to turbulence in the atmosphere of Earth that may become visible as blurring, twinkling or variable distortion.

So "blinking" may be more apparent than real sometimes. If you see something at times but don't see it at other times, you may be seeing it when the seeing gets better and not seeing it when the seeing gets worse. See?

Best place to start is to learn the night sky. And use binoculars to start learning how to use optics. Stargazing is a worthwhile hobby in itself. You don't need to take a laptop out in the field. Or a goddamned phone that flashes in people's eyes and ruins your night vision. (Hate) Just get one of these.

 

[davo27]

We may be talking past each other a bit. I accept all of the information you present here (it's great!), and appreciate its relevancy.

However, what I'm wondering is, at what point do you say "Hmmm... I may be seeing too many unusual observations here. It's not reasonable to expect to see this many at once..."?



I've just recently literally dropped my phone in a bucket of water, and am using an old backup... One of the astronomical apps I had, had a redshift filter for night vision. I don't suppose anyone knows of an app that would apply those types of settings to the whole OS?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I promise the cardboard thing is better. It's big and easy to see with a red-filtered flashlight. It's designed for that.

Just start off slow, learn the sky. The stars become old friends. That's the advice I have to leave you with.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

And, oh yeah... I envy you for the view you have of the Magellanic Clouds and the Jewel Box/NGC 4755. I've never seen them.

 

[davo27]

The weather's getting nice. Come on down!

 

[Creamy Pasta]

- we saw plenty of satellites - no comparison,

It's important to understand that satellites appear in the sky in many guises. They were probably all satellites, but you appear to think only the fast-moving constant satellites are actual satellites, and the rest are not. This is incorrect.

Think for a second, get a Garmin GPS device, switch it to "satellite view" and watch the screen. Many GPS satellites are above your horizon, and you can watch how they move on the GPS device... notice it is very slow. This is because they are not LEO (low Earth orbit) but much higher, around 12,500 miles up. Also, there's a lot of space junk left there.

It's rare to see these satellites because of their distance, but if the solar panels reflect the Sun directly at you, they'll appear as a flash, almost like a flashbulb Old satellites at this altitude cannot be brought down and burned up like LEO satellites, so once they reach the end of life, they're shut down, and that's that. So they start to tumble. Over the years, the number of these retired satellites has been increasing, leading to more possibilities of catching a glimpse of them.

There's an entire website for the satellite spotters community (yes, it's actually a thing) and you can find out more info there: satobs.org

Lastly, don't rely on phone apps if you want to know what was in the sky that you saw. They only tend to have LEO sats. The best thing to do is note the flash's date and time as accurately as possible, your location as accurately as you can, and where in the sky you saw it (either azimuth and elevation or the nearest star). Then post here. I'd be happy to ID the sat for you

Keep on looking up, but also keep on learning about what's already up there, too. It's a fun hobby.

 

[davo27]

That's really interesting about the higher satellites tumbling - is this an inevitable outcome at point of decommission, or does it rely on them being perturbed by some sort of impact?

And again, yes of course this seems like a likely explanation. Still not explaining to me why such a large number of unusual observations would be made in quick succession. Or are you claiming that these flares should reasonably be expected to be visible every few minutes?

 

[Creamy Pasta]

All operational satellites require attitude control provided by fuel. Often, a satellite retires not because its electronics die but because it runs out of fuel to maintain that attitude. After that, all manner of perturbations take over, including the various tiny gravity tugs, solar photon pressure, etc. And so they begin to gain a rotation and tumble.

So imagine that the tumbling satellite has a solar panel that reflects the light. It'll be a beam of light that sweeps over the ground as it slowly moves across the sky. You'll see the flash if you're on that ground. Eventually, that slice of ground will move along, and you'll lose sight of it. Many of these flashes last about 20 to 30 minutes or so.

 

[Creamy Pasta]

@davo27 I forgot to mention some satellites use reaction wheels to maintain attitude. These are driven by electric motors powered by the solar panels. So, these can have much longer life spans. For example, the Hubble Space Telescope uses these and is on its last set of reaction wheels (they sometimes have multiple sets for redundancy). So, not all satellites die from lack of fuel for thrusters, but they all have a lifespan of some sort. Nothing lasts forever.

 

[davo27]

I'm loving the education I'm getting here! Thank you to all.

Still waiting to hear about the key issue that is standing out as anomalous for me ‐ how many flares should one expect to see in the sky in a half hour period?

We're heading out again this Wednesday if the weather holds. Planning to make better notes in regard to time, and sky location if we make any more observations. Let me know if there are any other records you think we should make note of.

 

[davo27]

I've been thinking about why I'm not getting an answer to the probability question I keep asking - this may be salience bias - but I'm wondering if it's because this is all tied up with woo.

If it were reframed, and your child/friend/neighbour said they'd heard of satellite flares, wanted to see one, and asked if they would be able to if they went out and looked at the sky that night (low light-pollution area), how would you respond to them?

If they said they'd heard about tumbling satellites, and wanted to see one of those too, what would you say?

 

[Creamy Pasta]

I can't shed light on the 30-minute timeframe you mention. However, geometry may well be involved, meaning when the Sun is in a certain position below the horizon, some satellites "line up" and give you flares for that duration. We can do an experiment here, and you sound more than willing to gather the information, sightings, and facts, which is excellent! If you can do that, I'd be more than happy to assist with any post-analysis about what was in the various positions at the time. This is how we advance our knowledge. MEO satellites are the least understood in this regard.

For example, many LEO satellites are known to flare/flash in certain geometries. @flarkey et al. discovered the Sun below the horizon, approximately -36 to -40 degrees, can produce Starlink flares in the direction of the Sun. Other known LEO sats, like the old Iridium constellation, made predictable flares (see the photo I took myself below of Iridium 3 before it de-orbitted weeks after the photo).

GEO satellites are known to be seasonal. You can see YouTube videos of these by Kevin Fetter and even a video by Wolfie6020 of Erath's shadow passing around the geostationary ring.

MEO satellites, however, appear to be far less studied, and I believe that's because we observers don't go looking for them. If you're going to try and gather observations that may be in MEO orbits, I'd be very interested in this. Predicting potential flares/flashes based on geometry would be rather useful.

(edit: Forget to add the photo of Iridium 3)

 

[FatPhil]

All operational satellites require attitude control provided by fuel. Often, a satellite retires not because its electronics die but because it runs out of fuel to maintain that attitude. After that, all manner of perturbations take over, including the various tiny gravity tugs, solar photon pressure, etc. And so they begin to gain a rotation and tumble.

So imagine that the tumbling satellite has a solar panel that reflects the light. It'll be a beam of light that sweeps over the ground as it slowly moves across the sky. You'll see the flash if you're on that ground. Eventually, that slice of ground will move along, and you'll lose sight of it. Many of these flashes last about 20 to 30 minutes or so.

Retired GPS sats will be likely to tumble as they're retired by raising their orbit and then venting fuel, and of course there's zero effort expended to stabilise them after those perturbations.

 

[Creamy Pasta]

If it were reframed, and your child/friend/neighbour said they'd heard of satellite flares, wanted to see one, and asked if they would be able to if they went out and looked at the sky that night (low light-pollution area), how would you respond to them?

Some satellite flares are predictable, as per my previous image of Iridium 3. The Generation 1 constellation was famous for these very bright (brighter than Venus) flares but now no longer exists, having been replaced with Generation 2 satellites, which don't have the same antenna geometry of the previous satellites. It's a shame because they were highly predictable.