Windsurfing Regatta?
Windsurfing Regatta?
I’m tempted to say that it’s just Jupiter, but I’m not sure that you can see anything dimmer than magnitude -3 or so in NYC...
In this day and age, if you don’t have it on video, you have no credibility. Just about everyone has a cellphone, and most can make videos (or at least take photos).
the space shuttle did release a large amount of waste water that looked quite similar and it heated in the atmosphere
There was a rocket launch tonight from Wallops Island, VA. A sounding rocket, I think. Buddy of mine works for NASA up there.
The mods did zot a troll tonight.
If it resembles a really bright white ‘star’, it’s the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is exactly in that part of the sky about this time of the night.
It may have been from a spotlight on the ground somewhere.
My brother said he saw the same thing in the eastern sky (we are out near Clinton, NJ). He had just walked out of the garage and I was in the process of turning the lights off and closing up the doors and he said something, which I couldn’t hear. When I asked what he said, he was silent... so I didn’t see anything. He said it looked like a rocket or something. I forget what time this was... it was late twilight.
When I did look that way, it appeared that there was a faint clound in the area he was pointing at... that’s about all I saw.
I would like an update on this with a link.
Though man-made light, at night is very bright
There’s no whitewash victim
As the neons dim to the coat of white
Real Imperial Aerosol Kid
Wipes his gun, he’s forgetton what he did
And the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Did you see a light in the sky?
Sunday, September 20, 2009 | 1:15 AM EDT
September 19, 2009 (WPVI) — Action News has been contacted by many of you about a light in the sky. Did you see it?
Sunday morning update:
Here is the information from the Associated Press:
NASA says it successfully launched a rocket in Virginia as part of an experiment, and the blast may have caused dozens of people to report seeing strange lights in the sky.
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The space agency said it launched the Black Brant XII on Saturday evening to gather data on the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere. About the time of the launch, dozens of people in the Northeast started calling local television stations to report seeing strange lights.
The calls came from as far away as Boston, which is about 380 miles northeast of the launch site.
The rocket is designed to create an artificial cloud. NASA hopes the experiment will provide information on the formation and properties of noctilucent clouds, which occur at high altitudes.
Several Action News viewers called our station all reporting the same thing.
They saw a strange, bright, cone-shaped light in the sky at about 7:55 p.m.
According to viewers, the light lasted only about 10 seconds.
An explanation has been discovered.
NASA launched a weather research rocket from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, at about 7:46 tonight.
It is a four-stage rocket and the light seen up and down the East Coast is probably related to the burning of fuel during one of those stages about ten minutes after launch.
A user on flickr seems to have taken a picture of the light, as seen above. Is that what you saw?
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7022998
From CNN...
September 19th, 2009
Mysterious lights at dusk prompt calls
Posted: 11:11 PM ET
(CNN) - A series of spooky lights in the clouds off the coast of the northeastern United States Saturday night sparked a flurry of phone calls to authorities and television news stations, with some startled residents worried that extra-terrestrials were landing.
CNN affiliate stations from New Jersey to Massachusetts heard from dozens of callers who reported that the lights appeared as a cone shape shining down from the sky.
But the source of the illumination turned out to be a little more down to earth — well, closer to Earth, to be exact.
The lights were the result of an experimental rocket launch by NASA from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, a NASA spokesman told CNN.
Keith Koehler said the Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket was launched to study the Earth’s highest clouds. The light came from an artificial noctilucent cloud formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket’s fourth stage about 173 miles high.
Natural noctilucent clouds — also called “polar mesospheric clouds” — are “found in the upper atmosphere as spectacular displays that are most easily seen just after sunset,” according to a NASA statement published earlier this month. “The clouds are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere around 50 miles altitude.”
Normally, noctilucent clouds are not visible to the naked eye and can only be seen when illuminated by sunlight below the horizon. The Saturday launch took place at 7:46 p.m., just as the sun was setting for the day.
Observation stations on the ground and in satellites will track the artificial noctilucent clouds created by the rocket for months, NASA said.
“Data collected during the experiment will provide insight into the formation, evolution, and properties of noctilucent clouds, which are typically observed naturally at high latitudes.
“In addition to the understanding of noctilucent clouds, scientists will use the experiment to validate and develop simulation models that predict the distribution of dust particles from rocket motors in the upper atmosphere,” the NASA statement said.
–CNN’s Greg Morrison contributed to this report.
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/19/mysterious-lights-at-dusk-prompt-calls/
Sale at Big Lots?
I was participating with friends in a Nightsky Photography workshop at Acadia National Park. There were 15 adults: 12 participants, 2 park service employees to drive van and assist, plus Tyler Nordgren,PhD astronomer and artist, teaching the workshop. After an introduction and instructions, we all set up our cameras on the edge of Eagle Lake, most of us aiming southwest hoping to capture the Milky Way as the evening progressed. (The workshop was scheduled from 6:30-9:00pm ET.)
At approximately 7:50pm ET, we all observed a bright object that appeared suddenly directly in front of us. It seemed to come down in the sky, burn brightly creating a cone of light shining towards the ground much like a streetlight and fog-like light around it. the "streetlight" did not make it the ground. After a few seconds, the object disappeared. The fog and "streetlight" slowly disappeared after about 45 seconds. It just seemed to fade from the cone shape to a smudge in the sky.
At least 3 participants' cameras captured the event. (A series of 3 photos are attached, hopefully.) Not knowing where else to share such an event, we are posting it here. A description of photography workshop can be found here:http://www.nightskyfestival.org/Festival/Home_.html
*Note* Author's first image was not attached to post, or is unavailable.
(click image for full resolution)
(click image for full resolution)
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