I keep seeing something in the sky that looks weird to me. I first noticed it two weeks ago while taking a run after dark. While running north east I noticed a light in the sky that is "twinkling" red, green, and white. At first I thought it was someones quad copter, but it stayed in the same spot for my run and for at least an hour afterwards while I tried to get a better view from home. I did not have much success trying to see it with binoculars or my spotting scope ( I really need to get a telescope someday.) I pulled up Google sky and tried to figure out what it is, and the closest star I could figure it to be was Arcturus, but it was not a spot on match with the sky map.

I look at the sky a lot and can say I have never seen anything like this before.

I'm about 4.5 miles north of the North Carolina line and the object was NE about 72 degrees and about 35 degrees up from the horizon at 8:30 pm. I have seen it on every clear night since noticing it a couple of weeks ago week.

Anyone else seen this? Who knows what I am looking at? Should I get some tin foil and hide in the closet?

Always in the same spot at the same time? Does it appear to move at all?

Comet?

That comet was the first thing I thought of because I had read about it a couple of months ago, problem is the comet is only supposed to be visible in the hours before dawn.

Lately I have been taking my after dinner walk/run around 8pm and it is always in the same spot.

Stationary over an hour rules out any celestial source.  Something that far up would move with the stars as the Earth rotates under it.

You are not seeing a geosynchronous sat, those are too far out to see.


My bets are it's a targeting laser for a telescope (which would stay wherever they set it) or just a laser pointing up for other reasons.

It transitions through the sky, moving up and south.  It is also the second thing I can see after sundown.  Jupiter is the first object I can see, than whatever this is, then other stars as it gets darker.

Got an iPhone?

There are apps that let you hold up the phone and it overlays stars and planets and such.  Sounds like you are seeing Venus or Mars or something.

I see it every dark clear night from my place in Michigan. I always wondered the same thing. What is a goo app for my iphone to star watch?

I use the "Planets" app.  It shows the positions of constellations and planets and follows the motion of your phone. It also provides the times of visibility of the planets, as well. It's free, so that's nice, but I'm sure there's better pay apps out there.


ETA: This one https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planets/id305793334?mt=8

You're seeing Sirius, the brightest object in the sky.

SkEye

Not Venus or Mars, Google Sky is an app that shows such things.

My guess is that you may be seeing sun-synchronous satellites. If you look up the NASA A-train, you will find a good example of a sun-synchronous satellite constellation. Their orbits are north-to-south and south-to-north (depending on the time of day), and they pass over the same spot of the Earth at the same time of day. Satellites are easiest to see at twilight, when their altitude allows them to still be in full sunlight, but the surface is already in shadow. You can search out online applications which show where the constellations are at any given time and CelesTrack (https://celestrack.com) has orbit data which are publicly available (at least for the unclassified vehicles) and so does Space-Track (https://www.space-track.org/auth/login). I am not sure if there is a program or app developed which lets you know what satellites might be visible at a given location, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already written such a thing in Java, Python, R etc. I hope that helps.

we are not alone!!! and thats the truth

My dad has been semi-obsessed with these for about half a year now. They are commonly referred to as "disco balls", amongst other things. Explanations I've seen have ranged from common starlight being refracted under atmospheric disturbance to downright crackpot moonbat conspiracy theories involving government  satellite webs and, of course, E.T.'s


http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread371552/pg3

the weird thing is that there's no official report saying what it is or isn't