I was out in the back garden just 10 minutes ago (we live at Norton Woodseats, backing onto the woods near Newfield School), when I saw a brilliant meteor streak across the sky, from the South East. I've seen hundreds of shooting stars and one or two bigger ones too but this was a brilliant blue-white fireball, which traversed the sky from the direction of Norton Water Tower (I'd say) right across until it vanished above Heeley or thereabouts, or maybe a bit beyond. Very bright, and definitely the biggest meteor I've seen. Wonder if it burnt up or slowed down enough to drop to the ground? It wasn't the usual grain of sand making a thin brief streak, this one flew across most of the sky, and I think there was a noise with it too, a sort of rushing noise, lagging behind the object. I'd guess it was a small pebble sized meterorite. Anyone else see it?

Trust me to miss something like that.
Thats something you only get to see once in every lifetime.

I think a small boy crawlled out of it near barnsley, saw where he was and buggerd of back to krypton. :hihi:

Oh no can't believe I missed it! :( would have loved to have seen something like that

OK now this IS weird. Was just standing on the back of our house about 20 mins ago,if that. Coming from exactly the same direction and going in the same as you describe, came from Newfield School direction and then over towards the GleadlessValley tower blocks. Saw it through the back of the trees of Carr Wood. Amazing. At first I turned my head towards it thinking it was a very low flying plane, then I thought it must be the helicopter but there was no noise whatsoever and it was like a ball of white light with a greenish tint to it. I knew it wasn't anything normal. I came on here to see if I could find out what earlier police noise was towards the Gleadless Valley area but then spot your post. Weird. Are they landing from Mars, one every hour? But seriously, how strange but wonderful.

I think its the Perseid meteors or something. Theyre supposed to be dull though.

I think a small boy crawlled out of it near barnsley, saw where he was and buggerd of back to krypton. :hihi:


but he will return again and again

I think its the Perseid meteors or something. Theyre supposed to be dull though.

Yeah. This was anything but dull though. Brightest thing in the sky by miles. Like a flying welding arc.

DIVA: You must live not far from us then. Pretty amazing I agree. I was only outside because I wanted to finish my glass of wine before I went to bed. I think we're pretty lucky to see something as spectacular as that. I watched and watched for a bit afterwards but there were no more, not even the usual tiny shooting stars.

Theres a good chance that the meteor was a chunk of solid or frozen waste from the space shuttle.
It landed yesterday and before breaking orbit they usually dump their....toilets contents.
This orbits for a while before burning up in the atmosphere.

Just think, you may have watched a cometary turd.

Hur hur! Yeah, nice thought. Coming from the south to South-Easterly direction though, places it at right angles to the Shuttle's orbit, so it can't have been anything from that, which would have continued in its orbital trajectory (roughly SW to NE in direction). Must have been a meteor.

Maybe it was a precursor to a far bigger one that's going to take out a whole city? So long as it's not Sheffield.

Turd or not. I wish I had seen it.

When i lived in Pudsey, I once saw one on my way home from work, in broad daylight, that was bright enough to stand out against the daytime sky. This one was even bigger than that though. Ah well, keep watching the skies eh? The truth is out there...<cue X-files tune>

All Ive really seen is Mir and a supply rocket pass over head once, I used to listen to them talking on my radio scanner, but I have seen a lot of wierd little moving stars in the night sky above Sheffield --not meteors, just...moving, tiny points of light.
I saw one actually zig-zag once, then sort of Fuzz then get back on course.
Never did find out what they were.

quite a lot of meteors/satalites appear to zig zag,something to do with the human eye and refrance points,
once saw an amazing zig zag while i was photographing them and when i got the pic back...it went straight :rolleyes: :hihi:
(out of the millions of meteorite pics taken ive never seen a zig zag one :P ,tumbling ones yes,;) )
and i belive the shuttle keeps its waste on board untill after it lands,it does vent other stuff occaisionaly,but again i doulb't it was that,

JJ.. :)

quite a lot of meteors/satalites appear to zig zag,something to do with the human eye and refrance points,
once saw an amazing zig zag while i was photographing them and when i got the pic back...it went straight :rolleyes: :hihi:
(out of the millions of meteorite pics taken ive never seen a zig zag one :P ,tumbling ones yes,;) )
and i belive the shuttle keeps its waste on board untill after it lands,it does vent other stuff occaisionaly,but again i doulb't it was that,

JJ.. :)
Im glad to know they were satellites! Ive seen several zig-zaz and I was always scared to mention it in case people thought I was a UFO maniac.
Do you have any idea why one went "Fuzzy"?
It was very very dim and flew straight, then started to zig-zag erratically, then went fuzzy, like the vibrations in the air over the back of a fighter jet when its manuevering, then the fuzzing stopped and the sattelite straightened up and went on its merry way.

Its more than likley just a piece of the space shuttle or something or israel trying to subdue some refugees that have made it over here.

I was out in the back garden just 10 minutes ago (we live at Norton Woodseats, backing onto the woods near Newfield School), when I saw a brilliant meteor streak across the sky, from the South East. I've seen hundreds of shooting stars and one or two bigger ones too but this was a brilliant blue-white fireball, which traversed the sky from the direction of Norton Water Tower (I'd say) right across until it vanished above Heeley or thereabouts, or maybe a bit beyond. Very bright, and definitely the biggest meteor I've seen. Wonder if it burnt up or slowed down enough to drop to the ground? It wasn't the usual grain of sand making a thin brief streak, this one flew across most of the sky, and I think there was a noise with it too, a sort of rushing noise, lagging behind the object. I'd guess it was a small pebble sized meterorite. Anyone else see it?

I thought i saw the same untill i realised it was a bird flying home.

OK Yog Sothoth, I don't think it was the same thing we saw, as there was about an hour's time difference but it was in exactly the same direction - which is very weird indeed.

I spoke to my Dad about my experience and yours about an hour ago. He's a regular sky watcher. He lives near to me and says at about 1:30 am, he was looking out towards over the Gleadless Valley area and there was an abnormally large...he described it as a 'star'. He hadn't seen it before, he said it was really twinkling and you could see every colour in it. He'd not seen anything like it before and even called my mum to see it - and she was impressed! - which is very very rare! I'm half expecting the triffids to start arriving tomorrow! What's the chances of you and I seeing such a similar sight from and to the same direction, an hour apart? and then my Dad seeing something seemingly static over there? I'm gonna have another look tonight, are you?

You can find out when the International Space Station is visable over Sheffield here - stick http: in front of this!! //spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=United_Kingdom&region=England&city=Sheffield

You can find out when the International Space Station is visable over Sheffield here - stick http: in front of this!! //spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=United_Kingdom&region=England&city=Sheffield
Brilliant! Love stuff like this.
Thanks.

Bookmark it for later - It's not visable for a couple of weeks :(

Can anyone see that bright star now?

isnt Jupiter bright now?

Jupiter is usuallly bright when you can see it, i think:huh:

i'll go and have a look

I meant that Jupiter is in a position where its particularly bright at this time of its orbit.
Usually its a fainter magnitude than it is now.

i can't see it, i'm just ringing my dad to see if he can.

i get you jabberwocky, i think:huh:

I know that Venus is often mistaken for a UFO because of its occasional brightness. Maybe if Jupiter is at a bright phase its being mistaken for one also.

says he can't see anything in that vicinity at all at the moment. but it's a lot lighter than it was this morning. He's going to look later.

Can anyone see that bright star now?
Which way are we looking?
:huh:

meteors or whatever they were came from norton water tower direction and headed over gleadless valley in heeley direction. star or whatever it was was static over gleadless valley if you were closer to the city centre

I thought i saw the same untill i realised it was a bird flying home.


i think yog knows his stuff actually, matty. this thread is very educational, thanks everyone!

diva - very bizarre that both you and yog saw the same thing an hour apart and your dad saw something interesting a few hours later :)

I saw exactly the same thing as Diva's dad, I was sat outside till about 2am and it was still there. I wondered if it might have been a satallite or something.

This is a really interesting thread.

I'm gonna have another look tonight, are you?

I did look but didn't see owt. Maybe I got my timing wrong - I can't believe there were two large meteors so close together. Must have been the same one, surely! I've read quite a bit about meteors. They're very common but usually just tiny brief streaks. Bigger ones that make a well-defined fireball are rarer, but not that rare. Whatever, it was ace.

With reference to the timings, yog, your post was up at 11:09! That was an hour before mine! I'm not that out, when I said 20 mins I think i might have been a little over generous - i reckon our sightings were as near as dammit an hour apart. You couldn't have seen it after the time of your posting!

Sheff6er, very interesting, where abouts did you see it, can you describe?

A great thread and a bit wierd because about 4 years ago when I was living just off Woodseats Road I saw a meteor as well and it's almost exactly the same as what is being described on here, right down to the colours and everything. It caught my eye coming from the direction of Graves Park and streaked across the Sky in the direction of Heeley. A glowing ball with a trail behind it that took several seconds to traverse across the sky - a beautiful sight. Never seen anything like it before or since.

i think we saw one at work last night while having a cig break.

A very bright white streak flashed above for a split second.

Hi Diva yes it was over towards the west/north west of the city bearing in mind i live at Hillsbro it was in the sky out over Loxley - it looked like a star but a bit closer and looked as if it was flickering white and red. I also kept notincing that it kept diming then coming brighter. I thought this might be due to all the crap in the air between the earth an it.

Hi Diva yes it was over towards the west/north west of the city bearing in mind i live at Hillsbro it was in the sky out over Loxley - it looked like a star but a bit closer and looked as if it was flickering white and red. I also kept notincing that it kept diming then coming brighter. I thought this might be due to all the crap in the air between the earth an it.

It could have been a star. Some do flicker red/blue.

With reference to the timings, yog, your post was up at 11:09! That was an hour before mine! I'm not that out, when I said 20 mins I think i might have been a little over generous - i reckon our sightings were as near as dammit an hour apart. You couldn't have seen it after the time of your posting!

Blimey, so there must have been two! I know the smaller ones often come in bunches. Wish I'd stayed up a bit longer...

I wonder if we passed through the remains of a comet tail or something...

i think we saw one at work last night while having a cig break.

A very bright white streak flashed above for a split second.

Yeah that'd be one, the usual type that's actually about the size of a sand grain! Burns up as soon as it hits the atmosphere and makes that brief bright streak high up.

I1L2T3: A carbon copy. Must be a nest of the buggers out in space above Graves Park!

where was this?

what time?

It was about 11 o'clock Tuesday night. See the OP. Appeared over the trees Norton Way and headed roughly NNE, traversing most of the sky in a straight line. Definitely a meteor, but the biggest and brightest I've seen. There must have been plenty of people around the Sheffield area who saw it.

Incidentally, it appears that DIVA, who lives nearby, saw a very similar one somewhat later, on the same trajectory.

This really is a brilliant thread. Is there any way we can get an idea of the acitivity recorded officially around at that time?

What about:

UFO scare
FALSE alarm! UFO buffs can put down the binoculars and close the X-Files...for the time being.

Yesterday (Wednesday) The Star reported how reader Malcolm Rotchell and his bewildered family spotted a strange light shoot across the Rotherham skyline shortly after the electrical storm in the area on Sunday evening.
The bright orange ball "whooshed" over their home in Spring Croft, Kimberworth Park, then plummeted to earth after flying towards the direction of Swinton.
Malcolm thought the phenomenon could have been ball lightning, a firework or even aliens.
But Rotherham Council worker David Barker said: " I live in Kimberworth Park and saw the alleged UFO. It was definitely a flare! It was the type the army fire into the sky to illuminate the ground. It wasn't that high up either.
"I don't really see how anyone could mistake it for anything else. It went up like a flare, drifted slowly down like a flare then died out like a flare. It certainly wasn't ball lightning.
"To be fair, flares have been mistaken for UFOs in the past. There was a big flap in Arizona in the 90s where a whole city witnessed 'UFOs' landing on a mountain, only to be told a couple of days later it was army manoeuvres."
Paul Williams, of Greasbrough, also saw the light. He said: "When I saw it, I didn't think anything else but that it was a distress flare.
"It went up quite quickly then seemed to drift for ages. It was orange, like the witness said, and went in the direction that he saw it. It corresponds with the time as well. It was definitely a flare."
06 July 2006

The one I saw was a bloody fast flare (ie faster than any military jet you've ever seen)! And it was on Tuesday night, not Wednesday. AND it was roughly the colour of a welding arc, not "bright orange". It came from outer space, I tellsya!