I was walking out of work, (in Springfield IL), from the middle of downtown, on a 250 FROM bering, was a very large (large planet size) orb, I’m guessing either a planet or star. The thing that caught my attention was the stobe effect, as it appeared to have a white strobe but then it would change to aircraft like green / and red nav light colors, HOWEVER, it was in a non rythmic strobe.
I drove to several locations to to see if anything changed, and it was in the same part of the sky. I originally thought I might be seeing an aircraft, but it appeared to be at a high altitude (meaning not at an altitude you’d find helos etc at).
I came home and it has descended on the horizon a bit. It still "flickers between the three colors. I’ve pretty much ruled out aircraft.
I did notice the sky is extremely clear tonight, and the stars, even in town, are very vivid. Mars is visible, and an amber rust color.
My thoughts are maybe, what I am seeing is a planet or a star, and the flickering is coming from either interfereing and reflecting dust, or ice particles in the air, and the coloration may be a product of these reflections (ala Aurora?) .
I’m really blowing smoke and making up theories as to what I’m seeing, are there any academics or pros in the field here that may have more info? I am currently downloading a planet/star mapper to see if that had some info.
As the light from a star or reflected light from a planet passes through the earth’s atmosphere, it goes through the entire light spectrum. Although not all colors may be visible to your eye. The atmosphere acts just like a prism.
Also, as light passes through the different temperatures of the atmosphere, the index of refraction changes causing stars to"flicker"
Probably Sirius, the dog star. The brightest star in the heavens. It really twinkles sometimes and, with the right atmospheric conditions, it can strobe like you suggested. Another possibility is Venus, which can be pretty bright and sometimes can be seen with a distinctive orb shape.
I’m thinking that too. After I posted this last night, I found a program, that allows you to pan the sky, sounds like what Flyboy was talking about for the Iphone, but a PC version, Stellarium
After plugging in my location, the exact time, it looks like Sirius was right there. I think maybe atmospheric conditions helped in both the very vivid coloring, and the flicker.
Im REALLY glad I found a scientific solution, and didn’t have to go talking to the chemtrail fruitloops!
It’s kinda cool it happened, as it sparked a little bit of interest in to the stars which I’ve never had before!
sounds alot like something I found last night. That stuff is pretty neat! The one I downloaded allows you to click on a star etc, and it’ll tell you distance from Earth, and other information that it well above my head!
Pretty cool! I’d imagine it comes in handy on some of those late nights in the Lear eh?
…or you can just get a little plastic disc thingy about the size of a CD called a “planisphere” - usually just a few dollars. It shows the locations of all the stars for any night of the year at any time. Glows in the dark, no batteries, no iPhone, no software, fits in your pocket. Kinda like a map and compass instead of a GPS…back to the basics.
