What is that red/white/blue night 'star' and why is it moving?

[thelongshoot]

I was watching it last night, looking east there is a real bright star that twinkles more than the others, seems bigger and brighter than the others and seems to change colour rapidly between red white and blue. The most mind shagging thing though is that it seems to move..... one minute its there, the next its more to the right, then its way down low. I thought I was imagining that it was moving but the mrs agreed it was also.

Obviously its not a UFO, as there is no such thing that I know of.... And apparently Mars and Jupiter do not 'twinkle' as I googled it. Could it be the space station? Or is it just a huge star that you only see at certain times of the year?

Has anyone else ever noticed it?

[hookedondhamma]

If you have an android based device check out ye GoogleSkyMap app. I am interested in seeing this as well

Hopefully there will be clear skies tonight.

[greg71]

Can i have some of what your smoking plz

[trainman34014]

That must be pretty powerful moonshine you're on !! Seriously though; how do you know it's not a UFO? Rather like Ghosts isn't it, in that we don't believe what we haven't seen or can't prove by scientific means.

I'll be looking out for this 'Star' and be reporting back......if i see anything.

[Tywais]

Probably Sirius (aka Dog Star or Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky.

Although white to blue white in color, Sirius might be called a rainbow star, as it often flickers with many colors.

The brightness, twinkling and color changes sometimes prompt first-time observers to report Sirius as a UFO. But these changes have nothing to do with Sirius. Rather, they are what happens when such a bright star as Sirius shines through the blanket of Earth’s atmosphere. The light from Sirius, which often appears fairly low in the sky from the mid-north latitudes, passes through a long column of air before it reaches our eyes. Changes in density and temperature of this air affect the light and cause the flickering and shimmering we see when we gaze at this star. This happens for other stars, too, but it is more noticeable for Sirius because it is so bright, and because it appears low in the sky.

Earthsky.org

[kannot]

Venus, morning star evening star, twinkling colour change is probably Earths atmosphere and all the crap in it

[Tywais]

Venus, morning star evening star, twinkling colour change is probably Earths atmosphere and all the crap in it

Planets don't normally twinkle as they are not point sources of light but discs.

[kevvy]

Sirius appears to twinkle or shimmer more than other stars for some very simple reasons. It is very bright

Sirius twinkles, all stars twinkle. Light travels many light years from stars and right at the end of its journey, it hits Earth’s atmosphere, which consists of nitrogen, oxygen and other gasses.

[kannot]

Venus, morning star evening star, twinkling colour change is probably Earths atmosphere and all the crap in it

Planets don't normally twinkle as they are not point sources of light but discs.

Brightest thing in the sky though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

[TheFishman1]

It is a Lazar beam for like a local night club

[Garry]

It's a new Thai DSI security drone

[Braveheart24]

Probably ISS planets track in same plane and slowly. ISS orbits Earth 16 times every day and currently would be lowish down to the East. Color change is due to atmospheric conditions. See @Cmdr_Hadfield on Twitter

[BarnicaleBob]

I get it, you say it is not a UFO and I understand that, so for now it is just an Unidentified Flying Object until someone figures out what it is.

[mervyn yap]

Can i have some of what your smoking plz

Can I have some too when you are done?I believe those are good stuff.

[pattayadingo]

Maybe a new NSA project

[fire and ice]

Its a satellite.

[Pungdo]

Many many moons ago, a I asked an amateur astrologer friend of mine about that "Star that changes colour", he wheeled out his humongous telescope from his garage and lined it up for me, what it actually is, is 2 stars, 1 Blue & 1 Red that appear so close to each other in the sky that they a virtually side by side and give the illusion that they are one star changing colours.

[Just1Voice]

"Obviously its not a UFO, as there is no such thing that I know of"

You might want to put down whatever it is you're smoking or drinking (or both), try reading something other than TV, and join the 21st Century. Just over the past few months more and more "secret" documents from the American, Russian, Chinese, French, English, and other governments have been declassified and released that definitively blows your "no such thing" out of the water. Just because Thailand is still in the 18th Century, it doesn't mean you have to be.

[Tywais]

Many many moons ago, a I asked an amateur astrologer friend of mine about that "Star that changes colour", he wheeled out his humongous telescope from his garage and lined it up for me, what it actually is, is 2 stars, 1 Blue & 1 Red that appear so close to each other in the sky that they a virtually side by side and give the illusion that they are one star changing colours.

Binary stars - Sirius A is a Blue/White star, Sirius B is white dwarf. As I previously posted, the 'twinkling' and multicolor effect is due to atmospheric disturbances (refraction) and scintillation and more noticeable with Sirius due to it's size and close distance to earth.

[hellodolly]

Probably Sirius (aka Dog Star or Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky.

Although white to blue white in color, Sirius might be called a rainbow star, as it often flickers with many colors.

The brightness, twinkling and color changes sometimes prompt first-time observers to report Sirius as a UFO. But these changes have nothing to do with Sirius. Rather, they are what happens when such a bright star as Sirius shines through the blanket of Earth’s atmosphere. The light from Sirius, which often appears fairly low in the sky from the mid-north latitudes, passes through a long column of air before it reaches our eyes. Changes in density and temperature of this air affect the light and cause the flickering and shimmering we see when we gaze at this star. This happens for other stars, too, but it is more noticeable for Sirius because it is so bright, and because it appears low in the sky.

Earthsky.org

Spoil sport.

[Stjohnm]

Its TG971

[Tywais]

Probably Sirius (aka Dog Star or Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky.

Although white to blue white in color, Sirius might be called a rainbow star, as it often flickers with many colors.

The brightness, twinkling and color changes sometimes prompt first-time observers to report Sirius as a UFO. But these changes have nothing to do with Sirius. Rather, they are what happens when such a bright star as Sirius shines through the blanket of Earth’s atmosphere. The light from Sirius, which often appears fairly low in the sky from the mid-north latitudes, passes through a long column of air before it reaches our eyes. Changes in density and temperature of this air affect the light and cause the flickering and shimmering we see when we gaze at this star. This happens for other stars, too, but it is more noticeable for Sirius because it is so bright, and because it appears low in the sky.

Earthsky.org

Spoil sport.

Nah, long time ago an amateur astronomer.

[hellodolly]

How can any one say there is no such thing as a UFO and then ask what is that I don't know.

There are UFO's but that does not mean they are space ships. Just unidentified flying objects. Tomorrow they may be identified. the US has done a lot of studies on various cases and identified most of them, there are a few where they say we don't know what it is. They do not say it is a space ship from another planet or dimension just unidentified.

the endless procession of people who believe science knows every thing never ceases to amaze me.

[Sphere]

I dialed 1771 for a meter taxi last week. Red, blue & white they said. Not here yet!

[finnomick]

Now then ' thelongshoot ' -- you've got one of them too..... Luckily, after a lot of studying and question asking I ACTUALLY know the answer to this. Scenario. Last year there was a red flashing light up in the sky above our house. I was fascinated by it because it wasn't moving in one direction so I ruled out a plane. It did move, sometimes left, sometimes right, also up and down but always seemed to stay the same distance. I also ruled out a helicopter because there was no noise. I consulted the wife and in true Thai style she shrugged her shoulders and went back inside. After about twenty minutes, I did the same but kept on thinking about what it could be. Next evening, it was there again in roughly the same place. Well, the grey matter did some shifting and I remembered seeing two kites way up in the sky during the day. We went round to see the man who flew them and he said that he put a flashing light on his kite for when he leaves it airborne over night ( don't ask me why, must be a Thai thing ). Problem solved

[monkey4u]

I dialed 1771 for a meter taxi last week. Red, blue & white they said. Not here yet!

Its in the sky looking for a parking spot

[Cuban]

Depends what time you were looking East.

Twinkly things are usually planets.

At about 20:30 last night Uranus (seriously) was roughly half way between the Eastern horizon and the half moon which was quite high in the sky. If you look tonight at about the same time it might be easier to see as the half moon will be almost directly next to Uranus, this apparent lining up is called a conjunction.

The International space station is in orbit around the earth about 257 miles up and completes on orbit every ~93 minutes, so it will never appear to remain still or twinkle in the sky.

Seeing the ISS is easy, but you need to know where and when to look.

Tell me roughly where you are and I'll sort out some viewing times for you.

The ISS appears as a feint white dot moving slowly but steadily across the sky, in which direction depends on the day and time.

You need a sky that is clear of cloud and away from bright lights.

ISS spotting goes in cycles as it's orbit co-insides with night-time in different parts of the world as the weeks pass.

The other thing that people see and confuse with UFOs, planets, planes and ghosts is an Iridium Flash, this is a reflection of the light from the sun bounced off of the solar panels of a series of communication satellites that are in a matrix pattern orbit of the earth. There are a lot of these and generally there are probably two flashes seen everywhere on most nights.

These flashes are brief (three seconds or so) but can be very bright, again depending on your location in relation to the beam of sunlight they reflect across a path on the earth. Again these flashes can be predicted with great accuracy - down to the minute and second of appearance and fading.

[Tywais]

Twinkly things are usually planets.

Twinkly things are rarely planets. It is possible if they are very low in the sky with much more atmospheric density.

So why don't planets twinkle? It's because planets are bigger. Well, really, they're smaller than stars, but they are so much closer they appear bigger to us. They are much bigger in apparent size than the air bundles, so the smearing out of their light is much less relative to the size of the planet itself. Since the image doesn't jump around, they don't appear to twinkle.

There's always an exception though. In very turbulent air, even planets can appear to twinkle. The air is moving so rapidly and so randomly that even something as large as a planet can twinkle.

This effect also plays with a star's color. Blue and green light get bent more than orange and red, so sometimes in very turbulent seeing a star's colors will rapidly change. This usually happens when the star is low on the horizon (so there's more air for it to pass through). The brighter the star, the easier it is to see; Sirius, the brightest nighttime star, is often seen changing from green to red to orange and back, very rapidly.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/twinkle.html

[bigbamboo]

If you start hearing the Star Spangled Banner it's probably some of Tom Cruises' interstellar friends waiting for him to roll out the red carpet.

[LawrenceN]

That must be pretty powerful moonshine you're on !! Seriously though; how do you know it's not a UFO? Rather like Ghosts isn't it, in that we don't believe what we haven't seen or can't prove by scientific means.

I'll be looking out for this 'Star' and be reporting back......if i see anything.

Actually we do know that it is a UFO - Unidentified Flying Object - until it's identified. Then I suppose it will be an IFO.