[bradufo]

i never saw that again. ive seen satilites and space lab but not that. everything else ive seen moves in a straight line, it does not move like that did

[chantiepoe]

Originally Posted by oktor

i used to be a fruit picker on some farm lands, we would kick back and watch a tinny white speck move slowly across the sky every night, we assumed it was a satellite but we could have been wrong, regardless of what it was there was no way it was a weather balloon, not from horizon to horizon in a perfect smooth arc every night.
if what we where looking at suddenly turned one night at a right angle after we had been watching it for a month then diapered in any colour flash, we would assume. 1, someone threw the wrong grass on the fire. 2, what was up just tried to come down, and failed.
just a question, did the original speck come back the next night on cue or was that the last you saw of any slow moving space specks?

in all my years puffing i have never saw lights in the sky only driving behind me usually flashing blue at that :lol:

[X]

Didn't Spacelab crash in like the 70s or 80s?

[omicron]

Originally Posted by Shannygragger

It was a helicopter flying a lot lower than the ISS.

To begin with: Aircraft are equipped with strobe lights that go very fast on and off to prevent misidentification.

What exactly is the deal with the ISS being very hard to see; why a helicopter had to be the "rational" option to explain lights in the nighttime sky? The ISS is visible and hard to mistake for anything else.

The Russian Mir space station was discarded and burned down upon hitting the atmosphere. Everyone thought that the space station was dead and the debris that survived the plunge was buried on the ocean bed. But...! Strange things are going on in the rooms of Kremlin after midnight. Some believe that there is a rational explanation for the weird activity, but some don't buy it. Can things turn into ghosts?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xAGpW60s9Wk

[Warwick]

I have watched sateelites and whatever else appears in the sky for many years, and there are not only an awful lot of them, but they can appear to move in peculiar ways - nor always straight lines. Diffraction by the atmosphere can cause them to move in what look like arcs, or to apparently 'swerve'. They can flash brightly (reflections of polishe anteena or solar panels) and of course vanish into the earth's shadow (usually going orange/ yellow as they do).

If you go out on any clear night, anywhere in the world, you'll probably see several every hour, the brightest being the ISS, which is usually fairly low in the sky around dawn and dusk, brighter than almost any star. There are sites that churn out predictions if you want to see them... though what the point is, I don't know? I once caught Skylab in my telesdope for a fraction of a second, and was thrilled to see its dolar panels like little wings... but that was thirty years ago, I need bigger thrills to keep me happy nowadays...

[counter]

Originally Posted by bradufo

ok, im cant stress this enough. SPACE LAB IS NOT THE ISS!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is a slightly modified space shuttle to do scientific experements in space. i can tell the differans. look on the web a bit. it was far away, deffinatly in space. and a wether baloon caught in a draft would not da a perfict 90 degree turn. it would make a turn and still moove in a forward direction.

ok firstly. You're wrong, 'Spacelab' is not a slightly modified shuttle. Its was a module, taken up and constructed in a long series of normal shuttle flights waay back in the 80s and 90s.

Secondly, unless you have a telescope, even something in a low orbit would be indistinguishable to the naked eye. Do you realise how high up that actually is? Doesn't seem like you do.

It probably was an aircraft flying at an extreme altitude. Some military and special use aircraft have fixed lighting and don't use strobes in certain circumstances.

Nothing man made in orbit would behave like that, certainly not a satellite, and absolutely nothing that you would be able to see.