The campers were all locked in and the toilets had been given a quick "tickle" ready for the morning rush. As I walked back to the house I looked up at the clear evening sky.
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| I took this picture in april.... It is called a moon. |
The last of the blue sky was clinging to the horizon and the deep velvet of the night time was creeping its way west.
Only a couple of stars were beginning to shining. It was still too light for most of them to be seen, but as I scanned the heavens for inspiration something caught my eye.
A small yet bright blob of yellow drifted across the roof of the sky heading north.
"Ah!" I thought. "That's one of those satellites." I continued using my inner monologue and I stopped mid pace to watch one of these modern marvels of human science sail over my head.
I am always amazed when I see something like that in the evenings. To even begin to comprehend that a bunch of bald monkeys have the engineering skill to send a lump of metal and wires into orbit is almost beyond my reasoning and to actually see one of them still sends a shiver down my spine.
But then something unexpected happened.
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| As you can see (or not) there were not a lot of stars out |
As the little yellow light carried on its journey around the globe it did something toatally unexpected and I very nearly did something equally unexpected in my trousers.
you see, this satellite began to move faster.
as it did the light stretched to become a line of white light.
My jaw dropped and my bottom tightened. (it can do that in times of fear and confusion for some reason)
I ran inside and asked the internet what the chuff I had just witnessed.
Was it aliens? Was it Superman? Had I just had a Stroke? Or was it in fact a satellite all along?
The answer came quickly via Twitter of all places and the very friendly and helpful @VirtualAstro
"Yes, that was an iridium flare I expect" was the reply I received after explaining all of the above in 140 characters or less.
A quick google search led me to this wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare
I felt enlightened and less foolish.
It wasn't an alien invasion after all and I had no need to run into the garage and dig out my trusty flaming torch (you have to have a flaming torch to hand at all times, living in the countryside, its the law or something)
Anyway, I didn't see a UFO, or rather I did until it was explained to me what it was that I saw and it was something very well documented and not something that is due to take over the world and make us all slaves for an evil alien overlord.
The lessons to be learnt from this experience are as follows:
- Twitter CAN be useful at times.
- The night sky is totally amazing EVEN with the naked eye.
- My bottom is a coward.
Keep watching the skies!