Bright Red Light

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Bright red light
Taken by Mark on July 5, 2014 @ Lansdale, PA USA

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Bright red light crossing the sky from West to East. Not like anything I have ever observed. Total time horizon to horizon, 38 seconds. No sound, no trail and no color change. Time observed, 22:31. Details: Taken with a Nikon D7000 digital Cam with a 18mm lens in video mode.

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Looks exactly like the business end of the booster carrying NASAs Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission (OCO-2) that I watched for 20+ seconds in the wee hours of July 2ng, immediately following its launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, roughly 130 miles NW of my position, as it headed due south into a polar orbit. Check out the spectacular shot that Stephen Kelley captured from Malibu with a VERY long exposure - http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=98904 - enlarge it to be blown away. But in the moment, it looked just as youve reported, and from my position on a hilltop sweeping an arc over something on the order of 60 degrees of the night sky in the brief time I watched it.

Posted by fmichael 2014-08-04 00:06:45

This was the second such sighting of the night. First occurred about 15 minutes earlier at approx. 22:15 Light had the intensity of landing lights.

Posted by Clearskies55 2014-08-04 17:43:40

Clearskies 55 notes that Light had the intensity of landing lights.

A friend who watched the OCO-2 launch from roughly 170 miles NE of Vandenberg AFB exchanged comments with me immediately afterwards, in which we specifically agreed on the landing light intensity, except that the reddish-orange light (exactly how it appears above) never blinked!

Posted by fmichael 2014-08-05 00:35:44

And re the double firing, check out the Wiki page on the USNs UGM-133 Trident II - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II - and in particular the video labelled:

US Navy test firing two Trident II D-5 UGM-133A missiles in the Atlantic Missile Range, on June 02 2014 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/DASO_25_Video_%28Cleared_for_Release%29_VP8_001_Trident_II_UGM_133A_Test_Launch_02_June_2014.webm

It appears that the Navy likes to test fire these things in pairs, although the firing of Missile W1 and Missile W2 were apparently separated by a few minutes in the edited video of the June 2nd daytime test-flights from the US West Virginia. So a 15 minute separation could well fit the bill. Except, I always understood that theses flights were made over water . . .

Posted by fmichael 2014-08-05 00:51:48

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