[meteorite-list] Meteor or supernova tonight?

[Marco Langbroek]

Iridium satellite flaring, or geostationary satellite flaring.

- Marco

> Hi all,
> 
> About 1 hour ago (somewhere between 11:20pm and 11:40pm Mountain timezone)
> while walking in my Superior, Colorado neighborhood I saw something in the
> western sky that was really cool.  The thing that caught my eye was a star
> that brightened and brightened (so it was as bright as Jupiter) and then it
> faded away.  It took between 5 and 10 seconds for the whole thing to occur
> until I couldn't see it anymore.  At first I thought it might be a meteor
> coming toward me from the west, but I didn't see much (if any) movement.  It
> just brightened and faded.  I was still walking, so my perspective might've
> been off with the motion of me moving (so background trees and houses
> would've been "moving" also).  I guess it could still be a meteor, but it
> seemed more like a supernova (although those take a lot longer to brighten
> and fade).  I didn't hear anything, but I am near a somewhat busy highway.
> It definitely was NOT an airplane.  No blinking lights and not much
> movement.  It was between the stars Arcturus (in Bootes) and Antares (in
> Scorpius) possibly in the Serpens constellation, like near M5 (Messier 5).
> I think it was closer to Arcturus (maybe 10 degrees to the south of it) and
> slightly higher in the sky, but there were several bright street lights in
> that direction, so I couldn't get a more exact location for it.  Sorry.