-2 magnitude Weather Balloon sighted

There I was setting up the 6.2" apo in the back garden while Valerie was making the dinner, and lo and behold, I see this bright star in the sky -the same azimuth and magnitude as Jupiter. It is about 7.10pm and no star had appeared as yet -not even Capella overhead.
I phoned John Flannery immediately and Valerie kept John talking while I was putting on the diagonals and the eyepieces. "It's round", I yelled as I saw the object at 40X through the apo. Then John could see Castor and Pollux with his eyes. So what is it? It was round and a gorgeous red and there is something hanging from it. At first I thought it was a dreaded Chinese lantern, but no, It must be a weather balloon and its instruments hanging from it. Over the next half an hour, it slowly headed down to Procyon when it was invisible to the unaided eye. Most spectacular sight! Did anyone else see it?
John is now checking up on it. It came from the west and was travelling eastwards.

Aubrey.

Many thanks Aubrey for the call on Saturday ... I was amazed to see such a bright object that gave all the appearance of a supernova on the rise to maximum It was great you had the opportunity look closer with the scope and see some detail.

I found that the Observatory at Valentia launch radiosondes at different times of the day, including one at 5:15pm. This might have drifted northeastward with the prevailing winds. The geometry with the sun not far below the horizon at 7pm means if it was a radiosonde (which I'd be 100% sure it was) then it would have been nicely sunlit for us. More details of the launches are at www.met.ie/about/valentiaobservatory/radiosonde.asp

We can double-check with Met Éireann if it was a balloon launch from Valentia.

Talk to you soon,

John

Thank you, John, for this excellent update. Later on Saturday night, I did come across this same amazing website. And I did indeed notice there was a 5.15 launch. I won't be forgetting this wonderful sight for many years to come. In the telescope it did look spectacularly alien -rather like a very brilliant orange Mars with 2 spooky white eyes!

What I find most interesting too was that I was able to keep observing the weather balloon as it was moving very slowly southwards from Gemini to Procyon and fading all the time. By the time it reached Procyon, it was invisible to the unaided eye but I could still see it in the 6.2" refractor.

Aubrey.

Very interesting info, would have loved to see it myself. Well done to spot it BTW!