Around 17:35 today, there was a weird falling star to the south west over Digby Is.
I was with 5 other people who also saw the bright white star with a tail followig behind. It lasted like 15 minutes and went over the horrizon. Never see anything like it, other than Hail Bop. It was the brightest light in the sky at the time, and no, there were no blinking lights.
A friend mentioned he heard somthing about Russian Space junk falling into our atmosphere on the news days before.
Your silly smartass that was last week when the space junk fell to earth. tonight’s light show was called a sun dog, this happens just after sunset, it’s something in the atmosphere that catches the light of the sun.
It lasted about 10 min and after the sun was past the horizon it was also gone. . A falling object would have disappeared faster then 10 min if it was a comet it would have been there after the sun was past the horizon.
I thought it might be a comet at first as there was a tail to it, but as I watched the sun go past the horizon the sundog disappeared with the sun.
A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion) is a relatively common atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with the refraction of sunlight by small ice crystals that make up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. Sundogs typically appear as a bright and colorful patch in the sky at a position 22 degrees or more to the left and/or right of the sun. They are a halo. Other common associated phenomena, collectively called “ice halos,” are the circumzenithal arc, upper tangent arc, parhelic circle, and lower tangent arc. There are many other named ice halo phenomena that can be seen given optimal conditions.
The ice crystals responsible are hexagonal plate shapes 0.05 - >1mm in size. These ice crystals refract the sunlight in many directions but with a minimum deviation angle of about 158°, resulting in the appearance of sundogs about 22° from the sun. The refraction depends on wavelength and so sundogs have a red inner edge and more muted colours further from the sun as colours increasingly overlap. Solar altitude is important and sundogs draw away from the sun at increasing solar altitudes.
Sundogs are seen in short arcs always at the same altitude as the sun because the plate crystals are preferentially aligned by aerodynamic drag effects with their large basal faces approximately horizontal.
Although often less vivid and more diffuse than the ones depicted in the photographs, sundogs are actually rather common; they are often overlooked because one must look in the general direction of the bright sun in order to spot them.
In remote stretches of Western Texas, sundog refers colloquially to a segment of a common rainbow
Well that certainly killed the spirit of our “cut the living heart from a virgin to prevent the end of the Earth” ceremony. I’m gonna have to make sure no one brings a bloody wireless laptop to the next pagan eclipse gathering!
Oh pardon me for thinking “a weird falling star” could have been related to the “Russian space junk” like mercury stated. I didn’t see the sundog… so I was trying to point mercury in the direction of the other thread if they hadn’t seen it already.
LOL, so you really think that’s going to stop the end of the world? I dunno, maybe the suicide bomber folks have the right idea, claim your virgins at the end of the journey not the beginning.
I wounder if it will be visible tonight, would love to get a photo of it…
usually there is some advance when there is an Celestial event, such as this…
Those are very nice pics there Mr. AStrohug, makes me feel like I actually saw the thing. I can now go out in public and say “hey did you see the comet last night”.
