Did anyone else see......

Hi Folks,
Lastnight around 7 o'clock I was driving home, heading west, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a bright light with a 'trail' coming out of it. It looked for all the world like an aircraft with a contrail coming out the back of it.

The sun was long gone and it was pitch dark, so I was thinking *maybe* it was a really high-flying jet and contrail that was catching the sun from over the horizon.

I arrived home around a minute or two later and hopped out of the car to get a good look at this thing. I am 100% sure it was not an aircraft. I rang my brother and asked him to go outside and told him where to look. He could also see it, but was unable to see the trail as he lives in town and I'm out in the middle of nowhere.

The trail coming out of this thing was really odd. If you looked at the light directly, you couldn't really see the trail. But looking just to the side of it you could see it clearly, reflecting the moonlight or whatever. I'm not sure if the shape of the trail had changed from when I saw it in the car as I was focused on the road obviously, but when watching it from the driveway it looked cresent-shaped, with the point of light at the left tip of the cresent. It was belting along at a similar speed to when the ISS passes over us.

The light originated pretty much due west, and it eventually faded out down towards the southern horizon, all the while trailing this whispy white cresent, which got dimmer and dimmer as it progressed south.
It was definitely something in orbit... either someone flushed the jacks on the ISS, or some major venting going on. Either way, trippy as hell to see it :lol:
Below is a rough sketch with my elite MS Paint skills..
If anyone else saw this or knows what it was can you please let me know.
Thanks!

Just came across this image of the orbit of USA 193 (the spy satellite that's going to re-enter in the next few weeks) and I'm thinking it *may* have been it...



Any opinions ?

Ok, my monologue continues
Think I've figured it out....
I've been trawling the web all morning trying to find out what it was I saw, and then I came across this recreation on www.satobs.org/h2o_dump.html




Heres an actual shot of a 'dump'



Pretty identical to what I saw.
sweet.

Hi Krusty,

It certainly does sound like you saw venting of particulate/gaseous material of some sort (a "dump" would make most of us recoil with horror! :lol: Not sure if you ever saw the YouTube clip before of a Canadian Space Agency astronaut talking about what some "meteors" might be :lol: )

I had a look at Heavens-Above.com and the ISS certainly passed over the Shannon/Ennis area at 19:14 last night heading in the direction you saw your object move in.

Pretty cool getting to see that unexpectedly!

John

Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. Can't say I have seen that YouTube clip, but I get where you're coming from

I tried heavens-above.com but couldn't manage to get it to show anything 'historical'... only from today onwards

Thanks for the info though. I can put this one to bed.
A lucky sight indeed !

I'll be ready for the shuttle and ISS this evening though. Doubt there'll be any more 'venting' though :lol:

Cheers!

We get to see the pass twice tonight. 6:02pm and 7:36pm