O.K. for those of you that are more knowledgable than I, I have a question: In the night sky to my South Southwest at about 10 oclock I have what appears to be a bright star or planet with a slight greenish tinge. It's there every night. When I look at it with binoculars I seem to also see a little red twinkle. (No, I don't have a drinking problem!) However unlike a planet, star, or aircraft this stays in a fixed postion. It never moves. Several hours later it's still the same postion. I can only assume it's a a satellite. Am I right? I have a telescope that I will try and dig up this evening and take a peek.

Hey Bob-O, if it's a UFO and extraterestrials, maybe I can make contact and see if they can ray blast you a pond. What are you swamp GPS coordinates?

Actually all kidding aside, the question is genuine.

i've noticed the same thing but i don't know what it is. i've been assuming a satellite but i guess it could be little green men instead.

Could be Mars. It moves around, and moves so slowly it's hard to detect.

Could be a fixed light reflecting off cloud bottoms or reflecting off a stratified air layer interface.

Skylab?

Cecil, thanks, the coordinences are 41.43740943 Lat, and -84.87455154 Lon (corner of co rd 28 & 71) What yer seein might be Arctus. See StarDateOnline.com Carefull ya don't frost yer telly tonight. Bob-O

Time to break out the tinfoil hats. :rolleyes:

How high in the sky is this thing, Cecil? Can you estimate in degrees? (Note: The apparent distance between the tips of your thumb and pinky with the thumb/fingers spread apart and the hand held at arms length is about 15 degrees.)

If it truly does not ever move, and the elevation is the same as your latitude (should be about 41 degrees), that would point toward a satellite in geosynchronous orbit (IIRC about 26,000 miles high). Hard to believe any satellite is large enough to see at that distance. Does the frequency range of your eyesight extend unusually far, say into the television band?

Easy now Grettski. You're already skating on thin ice. E.T. fone home.

...self edited to it's demise. I had a nightmare about the pointy hat.

Grettski, isn't it amazing how we can compose something over a glass of wine or Jack/DMD ugg, and then the next day read it, and wonder "what were you thinking?" That's why we have the pointy hea...err..level headed moderators.
Go get your aluminum foil pointy hat and sit in the corner of your fallout shelter.

ya know, Burger, when I composed that one I was very careful because I was sure somebody would mis-pronounce the planet Uranus. Then I thought about it; if it was Mars or Venus, nobody would batt an eyelash. It's not like kids are reading their science books about astrology, giggling at the ironic mis-pronunciation of the 3rd largest planet in our solar system....right?
Well, after I threw the sweat-ridden bedsheets into the washer because of my REM-state, "pointy hat fear" induced trauma, I went and looked at it again....mostly based on your assessment. Only then did it hit me. This might even offend Cecil. I was on the innocent edge of violating "double secret probation"!!!
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(OK, truth be told)...I laughed every time I looked at it. Then I remembered the pointy hat.

What you are seeing is Sirius, the brightest star visible from planet earth. Rigel is actually the brightest star but is many times further away. Sirius is also known as the dog star located in Canis major and is associated with the dog days of summer. Because of its low altitude and brightness, Sirius often twinkles wildly from even small amounts of atmospheric turbulence. It may flash reds and blues as its light is refracted and dispersed on its way toward your eyes. If you can find Orion's belt and draw a line through it toward the horizon, it will pass just above sirius.

Cecil? You out there, Cecil?

Cecil musta left his web-cam on...I pulled these proto-types off of his website: tinfoilhyperdefensesystems.com
I presume he is busy making life-altering decisions regarding which model will be suitable for tonite's stargazing event.




-(personally, I see advantages with the Centurion design. It boasts a stealthy design that will be advantageous to avoid embarrassing moments with the neighbors)

I think I'm more a classical man myself. Full protection with an economical use of tinfoil.

OK, Cecil, Sirius-ly (asuming you have not been abducted, knock on wood) I just returned (safely) from outside and can personally confirm that as PFF said, Sirius is currently low in the SW sky. And it looked to me to be twinkling red, white, and blue, but you could be easily getting green due to local atmospheric contaminants.

Now, if you're serious, not Sirius, and what you are seeing doesn't move, I got nuthin'.

Even a small, cheap scope with a 2" objective and 60x magnification (like I have had since I was a kid) will let you discern the diameters of Venus and Jupiter (and perhaps Mars and Saturn) to let you differentiate between these bright planets and any stars (which will remain points of light no matter what telescope you use, unless you have a government sized budget).

Cecil? Come in, Cecil.

"Even a small, cheap scope with a 2" objective and 60x magnification (like I have had since I was a kid) will let you discern the diameters of Venus and Jupiter (and perhaps Mars and Saturn) to let you differentiate between these bright planets and any stars (which will remain points of light no matter what telescope you use, unless you have a government sized budget).

Cecil? Come in, Cecil."

Ramblings of a celestial gyro-aerospace engineer.

Grettski, you have too much time on your hands.

I think Cecil is still trying to find his 7th planet from the sun.

Orion's belt? Heck, I've never even found Orion.

You guys are too funny! What a great group compared to the taxidermy forum I used to frequent where the name of the game is to one up people.

I took a look at it with the telescope. It appears to be a planet -- probably Mars. It's looks like a disc vs. a star. Apparently it moves, albeit not as fast as I thought it should.

sirius appears as a small blue disk through a telescope. It is a blue supergiant only 8.7 light years away. Clearly the brightest star in the sky. Jupiter appears brighter but when you look at jupiter even through high power binoculars you can see the 4 brightest moons.

Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - the four "Galilean Satellites" were the first heavenly bodies discovered by Galileo with his telescope.

It was not recorded whether he used his telescope to observe heavenly bodies sunbathing next door, as I did as a teenager.

....ahhh, so this is where the "outdoor tanning spa for mummies" comes from. Thanks for the clarification, Indy.

OMG... I just spit a breakfast Dorito (yes a chip) out on my computer screen. You boys really need help. You're a big group of loveable nuts.

Deb