Spotted strange cluster of objects traveling across the sky this evening

Submitted by hawkz40 t3_10o46vc in space

Firstly, I apologise in advance if this sounds a little loopy.

I have just installed Stellarium on my phone and so went outside to spot some Satellites for accuracy/curiosity.

I was looking towards Orion's belt and spotted a cluster of about 7-9 "dots" in the rough shape of an arrow ( i guess like a flock of birds following leader in formation) that traveled in a straight line about 120 degrees of eye-view from left to right at rather high speed (3-4x faster(low orbit?) than the ISS zipping across the sky). I guess my query is (my first thought being starlink), does star link have a bunch of satellites set up like that? either that or i spotted something funky :) I am somewhat perplexed at what i saw.

I don't think it was someone with laser pointers, it covered too much sky to be that...

thanks for any thoughts, suggestions of a lie down and a cup of tea, take your meds etc...

Location was Dunedin, New Zealand and the time was about 10:30pm

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Example of SL vs OP Observation

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PoppersOfCorn t1_j6cggl1 wrote

High probability of starlink. They are close together until separation, and there are also a lot of satellites in the sky nowadays. I rarely go out at night without seeing at least one

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weathercat4 t1_j6dxa7f wrote

I have many times seen lights flying fast and silent in a V formation. Everytime it has been geese flying, they don't honk much at night.

There are an insane amount of satellites now as well. Sometimes random ones just happen to appear flying in formation but it's just an illusion, with starlink trains as an obvious exception.

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hawkz40 OP t1_j6fe7gw wrote

If they were geese, i want to know what makes them glow at night and fly that fast. :D

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weathercat4 t1_j6fgbmh wrote

Same reason you can likely see the bottoms of clouds at night, light pollution. Birds in light pollution against the sky look like faint glowing orbs and they seem to move really fast because they are quiet so your brain assumes what your looking at must be far away when it is actually very close.

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KAKrisko t1_j6fjx1f wrote

I think flying geese are UFOs more than people imagine. I remember looking up one evening and seeing these shimmering, silvery things overhead, flying fast. Fortunately I was able to watch them until they resolved into a flock of geese. Geese and other water birds have a substance on their feathers that helps shed water, and I think it also reflects light very well, with a silvery or metallic appearance.

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weathercat4 t1_j6ifqtw wrote

I was thinking about it more, do you have any RC plane or drone clubs near by?

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hawkz40 OP t1_j6m89gb wrote

no, nothing exciting like that. Whatever it was, it looked in orbit, just really fast :P hard to really gauge distance though isn't it.

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bookers555 t1_j6gyf5r wrote

V formations can be aircraft prototypes. The likes of Lockheed and Boeing have been trying to get the flying wing design to work on small aircraft for decades.

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whatsgoingwrongnext t1_j6clwwa wrote

You don't sound loopy. You sound like you saw Starlink and didn't realize what it was. Search for "Starlink in the night sky" and see if that looks similar to what you saw.

Not really related, but i actually have seen a UFO before. Like 7 years ago in western Pennsylvania USA. I wasn't alone, so I have somebody to tell me I wasn't hallucinating lol. It was obviously not above the clouds and not what I would have expected from a UFO sighting, but don't get me wrong, it was absolutely breathtaking.

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hawkz40 OP t1_j6felxk wrote

>Starlink in the night sky

Yeah, I've seen starlink plenty of times now, I have paint.net'd an image below for comparision. SL above (obviously) and what I saw below, roughly.

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dram3 t1_j6dj3h9 wrote

First time I saw starling was on a boat off the north island, from memory they were headed south west? Not sure on that. They were mostly in line but there were a few out of line, might look like an arrow.

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OnlyAstronomyFans t1_j6dnf4o wrote

It’s just a train of star link satellites. It’s not the end of the world, but I hate those things, that idiot is ruining the night sky for the rest of us.

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Zero7CO t1_j6cmeje wrote

I believe you are describing something I have seen two times in the last year. It was even brought up on the NextDoor app as another neighbors saw it, described it and was shook-up over it (as I was…particularly my last siting of it). FYI I live in Denver CO.

Basically, what we both saw were 7-10 very light dots, almost too faint to see, moving at ridiculous speed in an arrowhead or similar formation. First time I saw it it was going south to north…then last time it was moving north to south. Absolutely no sound, no flashing lights, but insane speed. Took 15 seconds to traverse the entire sky. As a comparison, the ISS or a Starlink flyover takes at least 4-6 minutes.

It was most definitely NOT Starlink. I have thousands of hours stargazing and know one of those from a spy satellite from a Iridium Flare from a plane from spinning rocket debris, etc…this moved exponentially faster and in a completely different pattern than Starlink. I’ve seen 4 flyovers of those…and these couldn’t be more different. Every time I’ve mentioned it it’s the response I get as well….it’s something different.

The last time I saw it, about 6 weeks ago…for whatever reason the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I got choked up the second I saw it. That’s how impactful it was to me.

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OnlyAstronomyFans t1_j6dn5cr wrote

It’s a train of StarLink satellites, not the end of the world or aliens, though I hate StarLink. That idiot is ruining the night sky for the whole planet.

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Zero7CO t1_j6e3m0l wrote

No it is not. I’ve seen 9 Starlink passes. The fastest I’ve seen a line pass-over is one that came over a few hours after launch. It took 3 minutes to do its pass. Always a straight line. This was an arrow-shaped formation with the point of the arrow leading the others, with one directly behind it. It traversed the entire sky in 15 seconds…over 15x faster than the fastest Starlink passover.

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OnlyAstronomyFans t1_j6el3sp wrote

They’ve been trying out different train configurations. Believe me it’s star link or some other low earth orbit communications satellite. We didn’t find aliens or anything.

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hawkz40 OP t1_j6ff30v wrote

you don't know we didn't. Perhaps they didn't think we'd spot them in arrow formation :P

I added a sample image of what I saw to the opening post...

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SpaceInMyBrain t1_j6drfkf wrote

Starlinks in their orbits can be distinguished from an Iridium or other satellites, I suppose. But in the days after their launch Starlinks travel in a line as they slowly climb to their designated orbits, eventually spreading out. A lot will be seen in a single line soon after launch and later there'll be only one or two visible at a time, very spaced out.

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