On the evening of 28th July, when OH was at Scout Summer Camp on the Isle of Wight, several adults were admiring a spectacular sunset. A short while later, this happened:-





Several people saw it but only OH had his camera with him. The object in the centre of these pictures was travelling west to east at high speed. It was not falling. The pictures haven't been tampered with in any way other than to re-size them. Has anyone got any idea what it might have been? I can crop and enlarge the central section of the image if it will help.

Gill

This post was last modified: 18-08-2009 08:00 AM by Ursa Major.

Sun reflecting on the Space station maybe?

Hi Phyzzio

That's interesting as we hadn't considered a space station at all. So, in the right circumstances, that would be visible to the naked eye, from earth? I forgot to mention that he didn't have the telephoto lens on the camera at the time so the zoom was just the maximum the normal lens gives.

Gill

I have often seen the space station - it moves quite fast! It is visible with the naked eye.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sig...on=England lets you enter your nearest town and it then tells you when the space station is visible, at what height, from which direction and for how long it is visible!
Angela

On a good clear night, the space station is as bright as the landing lights on an aircraft. It travels west to east and as you watch it, as it gets to the far eastern side, it gradually dims then disappears.

Hi Angela

Many thanks for that link, I have added it to my "favourites". I half-expected someone to suggest a UFO but we had discounted that due to the fact that the alien monsters were already on the ground and enjoying summer camp!

Gill

That is a very good possibility.

When we were in Kenya and on the Equator. I can remember on several occassions being out in the bush and laying out on a warmed rock during the night amongst the animals and looking skywards at the stars with no interferance from other light sources. It's amazing the amount of satelites you can see in the sky travelling at high speed. They felt so close that it almost makes you just want to reach up and grab one, I was near the Equator though. Some were communication satelites, some TV satelites and some even spy satelites. There are hundreds. Amazing.

This post was last modified: 18-08-2009 05:07 PM by Yogi..

I just came across this website/forum by chance.
This thread is pretty old - did you find out the answer?
I'm pretty sure it's a thai lantern. I've set these off a couple of times and this is what it looks like once up in the air.
Got my own pics and video clips if you want to see...

On the evening of 28th July, when OH was at Scout Summer Camp on the Isle of Wight, several adults were admiring a spectacular sunset. A short while later, this happened:-





Several people saw it but only OH had his camera with him. The object in the centre of these pictures was travelling west to east at high speed. It was not falling. The pictures haven't been tampered with in any way other than to re-size them. Has anyone got any idea what it might have been? I can crop and enlarge the central section of the image if it will help.

Gill

Let's see your pictures then Elise!

Here's a video of us setting some off last October: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5izctODeaU
My lanterns are actually different colours. The standard colour is white so you get the orangey glow like in OPs photo.
Just trying to find a suitable photo. Think I may have deleted the ones I had that were very similar to the OP's photos cos they were a bit rubbish with the lanterns being so far away..

This post was last modified: 08-02-2010 09:43 PM by Elise.