Earth grazer appearance?

Well, not to start another UFO thread, but a colleague of mine who lives
in the country, and who knows a bit of astro stuff, saw what sounded at
first like an Iridium flare (object growing brighter, almost seeming to
come towards them) but then as it faded it moved in a different
direction.

The overall movement pattern was that of a somewhat shallow V.

It was evening during the week of the Perseids. What does an earth
grazing meteor look like?

Or perhaps it was two objects just happening to have intersecting
trajectories-- say an Iridium flare followed by an ISS or other transit?

This remains a UFO (and this one was moving) until identified.

Larry Stedman
Vestal

Larry Stedman wrote:
Well, not to start another UFO thread, but a colleague of mine who lives
in the country, and who knows a bit of astro stuff, saw what sounded at
first like an Iridium flare (object growing brighter, almost seeming to
come towards them) but then as it faded it moved in a different
direction.

The overall movement pattern was that of a somewhat shallow V.

It was evening during the week of the Perseids. What does an earth
grazing meteor look like?

Or perhaps it was two objects just happening to have intersecting
trajectories-- say an Iridium flare followed by an ISS or other transit?

This remains a UFO (and this one was moving) until identified.

Larry Stedman
Vestal


Was it "flying" or in a ballistic trajectory? In the latter case, it
would be a UBO, not a UFO. Of course one could liberally interpret
"flying" to mean traveling through the medium (whatever that medium may
be)--i.e.: "the fur is flying in the cat-fight", or a descriptor of
certain waste byproducts striking a multi-bladed rotary ventilation
device.
IMHO, the label "UFO" is applied with a broad brush, and should be
reserved for objects that appear to be intelligently guided, like, for
example, an ANA 747 at angels 35, when one can't make out the tail art.
This would exclude objects like "Rocky the Flying Squirrel (tm)", or
those pesky black and yellow insects that compete with us for spare ribs
at the Memorial Day BBQ.
Then we come to the question of "intelligent" and "guided" (vs "stupid"
and "directed"). Case in point, the balloons falling at the RNC in NY,
even though Daniel Joseph Min is reportedly a thousand miles away
drafting his latest "Zero Days & Counting" post.

Now, if it's all right with you folks, I'll just smoke another joint and
continue trying to configure my mail server.

Seeing was better on Monday night than it was on Sunday night, but my
back was bothering me, so I used the C-8. Man, I hate those funky 9x50
finders. Upside down, reversed, etc. Confusing as hell. I don't know
where the heck I'm pointing most of the time. Give me a telrad any day.


Regards,
Etok

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On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 20:43:59 GMT, Larry Stedman
wrote:

Well, not to start another UFO thread, but a colleague of mine who lives
in the country, and who knows a bit of astro stuff, saw what sounded at
first like an Iridium flare (object growing brighter, almost seeming to
come towards them) but then as it faded it moved in a different
direction.

The overall movement pattern was that of a somewhat shallow V.

It was evening during the week of the Perseids. What does an earth
grazing meteor look like?

Or perhaps it was two objects just happening to have intersecting
trajectories-- say an Iridium flare followed by an ISS or other transit?

This remains a UFO (and this one was moving) until identified.

Larry Stedman
Vestal


I too live in the country, and know a bit of astro-stuff. I have seen
lights
get brighter, appear to be coming toward me, then divert their path away.
However the objects I've seen do that turned out to be airplanes or jets
with
their landing lights on, headed for an airport 20+ miles away.

Cheers,
Larry G.



--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

So presumably they were making a banking maneuver or some such and
heading into the airport. That could well be what this was.

But still wondering what earth grazing meteors look like...

Larry Stedman
Vestal