I don’t know much about any of the topics listed in the subject line but as we were leaving dinner tonight about 7:30pm (here in CA) I noticed a group of people looking up in the sky. There was a light that had the “starburst” effect that a spotlight has shooting through a light haze, or that’s how it looked to me. Thought it was kinda strange looking but that’s all.

I loaded up all the kids and looked again and it had moved a good deal in a generally southern direction and the “starburst” effect struck me more as a tail at that time. Upon further review I could see the southern movement abd it struck me as somewhat slower than airlines I see overhead which all seem to be going west towards the SF Bay Area.

I don’t know where to look to see if there were any rockets or comets or whatever flying overhead. Anybody know?

Besides the aliens, of course. I’m not saying aliens.... but aliens.

SpaceX falcon 9 launch out of vandenberg air force base.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/s...se-today-2018-10-07/

Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk’s rocket company launched a commercial satellite for Argentina on Sunday evening, marking SpaceX’s 17th mission of 2018 in the type of steady success that so far has eluded his electric-car maker Tesla Inc.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s central coast about 7:21 p.m. local time. About 8 minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage returned and landed at Vandenberg in a first for a California-based SpaceX launch. The second stage deployed SAOCOM 1A, an Argentine Earth-imaging satellite, roughly 12 minutes after the launch.

Having a rocket’s first stage return safely to Earth is part Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s strategy to reduce launch costs and win market share. SpaceX already has recovered rocket boosters several times, both on land in Florida and on drone ships at sea.

Musk is the chief executive officer, chairman and largest shareholder of both SpaceX and Tesla, two companies that are pushing frontiers of technology while surrounded by different degrees of drama. Closely held SpaceX’s valuation has climbed to about $28 billion as it racks up successful launches, making it the third-most valuable venture-backed startup in the U.S. after Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc. SpaceX completed a record 18 missions in 2017 and is on track to exceed that number this year.

Click here for a story on SpaceX’s plan to fly its first customer to the moon

Publicly traded Tesla’s value, meanwhile, has seesawed as Musk made bold claims about taking it private, only to draw a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk ridiculed the SEC as the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission” in a tweet last week, rattling investors with a missive that could imperil the deal struck with the regulator just a week earlier. The settlement, which isn’t final, bars Musk from serving as chairman of Tesla for three years as punishment for tweets he sent about taking Tesla private, but it allows him to remain CEO. Tesla shares fell about 7.1 percent on Friday.

SpaceX has a contract to ferry American astronauts to the International Space Station as part of what’s known as the “Commercial Crew” program with NASA, but the timeline for the first flights has slipped repeatedly. The latest schedule from NASA has SpaceX’s first demonstration fight slated for January, and the first flight with astronauts on board slated for June.

In August, SpaceX employees got a chance to meet the four astronauts who will fly on Crew Dragon, the craft SpaceX designed to ferry them safely to and from the orbiting lab.

Last month, Musk announced that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa plans to fly around the moon on the company’s BFR rocket in 2023.

Link

Thanks fellas!

FWIW, comets movement is only noticeable over days/weeks/months. Much like the moon and planets.

You will not detect the motion with your eye.

"Shooting stars", meteors/meteorites move pretty fast. Some travel across the sky very fast lasting only a second or a fraction thereof, and some last for a few seconds, but typically nor more that about 4 seconds for the longest and slowest trajectories.

Rockets and missile shots can move about as fast as an airliner, and the most impressive are the shots that are near dusk and dawn, so that the contrails are illuminated by the sun after sunset or before the sun is risen, giving dramatic effect.

The exhaust plume expands much greater distances at higher altitudes and the expansion rate and distance as the vehicle moves toward orbit insertion is pretty wild to observe.

I have seen a few and depending on the observer's POV and the trajectory, the experiance is pretty varied.

Yeah I’m here in Livermore and my friend in Tracy txted me to run outside and look due south. It was quite bright we watched it for a few minutes. Glad they landed it safely.

I saw it at 7:31. My first thought was "Oh shit, Para's comet is here..." I may spend to much time browsing this forum.
Oscar Zulu

My daughter called me outside around 8:30 Mountain time. Strange looking light that seemed to be the moon peeking through a slit in the clouds. Then it got bigger and looked like a comet with a tail. The whole thing started to curve the further south it went. We viewed this from New Mexico. I would not have thought we could see it from that far.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
FWIW, comets movement is only noticeable over days/weeks/months. Much like the moon and planets.

You will not detect the motion with your eye.

"Shooting stars", meteors/meteorites move pretty fast. Some travel across the sky very fast lasting only a second or a fraction thereof, and some last for a few seconds, but typically nor more that about 4 seconds for the longest and slowest trajectories.

Rockets and missile shots can move about as fast as an airliner, and the most impressive are the shots that are near dusk and dawn, so that the contrails are illuminated by the sun after sunset or before the sun is risen, giving dramatic effect.

The exhaust plume expands much greater distances at higher altitudes and the expansion rate and distance as the vehicle moves toward orbit insertion is pretty wild to observe.

I have seen a few and depending on the observer's POV and the trajectory, the experiance is pretty varied.

Around 1995 or 1996 I was driving North on I-81 after sunset and recall enjoying watching Hale-Bopp off my left shoulder for a couple hours as I drove up to see a girlfriend at Penn State.

The picture at this link is how it appeared to me. Pretty cool.

http://centralvalleytv.net/new...-on-show-over-valley

I saw it.

I'm in the next town over from ElToro.