• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

No leads or reports of anything unusual.

Conclusion: I think Mytho has it closest. I reckon the twinning effect was a satellite launch event with the final staging section slowly separating from the satellite around the time of observation. Why it shone so brightly I really can't say. If the ISS is a magnitude 4.5, this was at least a 4. Really nice to watch.
 
... I reckon the twinning effect was a satellite launch event with the final staging section slowly separating from the satellite around the time of observation. ...

Could it have been the most recent Chinese launch? ...

Two Earth-imaging satellites and an experimental solar sail payload rocketed into orbit Thursday aboard a Chinese Long March 4B launcher, the first flight for China’s Long March 4 rocket family since an upper stage failure in May.

The liquid-fueled Long March 4B rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan space center in northern China’s Shanxi province at 0326 GMT Thursday (11:26 p.m. EDT Wednesday), according to state media reports.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/09/...h-observing-satellites-solar-sail-experiment/
 
That's it. You're proper clever, EG.

3am China is about 5am here yesterday, so they'd have been doing their seps around 6:30-7pm our time for sure.

It was an amazing big thing rolling out up there. I wonder if we could get some pics and some scale. I haven't time to look right now but I'm guessing it'll dwarf the ISS, whatever it is or is going to be.
Cheers, EG! Will shout you a pint or two in the Trolls later on. :atom:
 
A few weeks ago - I reckon it'll be 4 weeks tomorrow - Techy and I were at the petrol station till together waiting to pay for fuel or wine or whatever, when we both suddenly stumbled and nearly fell over. We were standing still, totally sober. It was as if the floor had tilted.

We went 'WTF?' and then it was our turn so we carried on and forgot about it for a few days. Maybe it was a little earthquake?
Sometimes when you stand still for long enough, especially in a queue you can zone out, and can tend to rock slightly then jump and move forward so it feels like you are falling, sorry, i cant explain the feeling very well :( Bit like going into a trance
 
Sometimes when you stand still for long enough, especially in a queue you can zone out, and can tend to rock slightly then jump and move forward so it feels like you are falling, sorry, i cant explain the feeling very well :( Bit like going into a trance

Yup, I know what you mean. There was no zoning-out though, it was a busy place with a fast-moving queue (expert servers) and we two were chatting. It felt as if the ground tilted.
 
Interesting. Any reports of that event could be useful. I may have seen a conglomeration of many small birds appearing as two large ones.

Again, the strength of the shine was equivalent to the shine of the ISS, which, if you've seen it, is distinct from every other can in orbit.
Swamp gas. I rest my case.
 
Could you see the lights, or did they just appear in the film ?
 
Photo taken through a window and the lights are reflections from the harbour? Perhaps also shaking a little while taking the photo?
 
Photo taken through a window and the lights are reflections from the harbour? Perhaps also shaking a little while taking the photo?

The shaking definitely has something to do with it, whether or not the photo was taken through a window. The individual items within the two rows of additional lights align with one or another of the rows of "real" lights below, so I'm confident they're secondary reflections from the brightest elements of the visible scene.

Depending on what sort of camera was used, they might represent reflections within the camera's optics (lens(-es)).

The "taken through a window" hypothesis would explain why these secondary reflections are color-shifted to a blueish / greenish tint.
 
No I was on a balcony with no glass in between. There is a slight blur because of a slight rock on the tripod.

Some are stars as the blur is in the same direction.

But i took another one later and there is nothing on that one.

There was a slight shake on the tripod with this photo though.

Another taken a short while later for comparison: View attachment 03_ Night Harbour3 low.jpg
 
Last edited:
I was also suspecting something along these lines.

I have seen pictures of 'lights in the sky' that clearly aligned with lights on the ground once you make the initial reference. It is the colour shift that confuses things.
 
I took this photo of Penzance harbour at night. What I can't work out is what the line of lights are just at the bottom of the cloud line on the horizon. There is no land there, just sky. Some appear to be stars but there are a couple of strange lines of lights. Any ideas anyone?

View attachment 20109

Earth lights?
 
Yup, I know what you mean. There was no zoning-out though, it was a busy place with a fast-moving queue (expert servers) and we two were chatting. It felt as if the ground tilted.

So it was four Fridays before Friday 14th September ?

If you can confirm the date then a look at the British Geographical Society's Seismometer readings for the day will show if there were any Earthquakes.

And don't forget that Quadrilla have had to stop fracking due to them causing more quakes.

INT21.
 
I took this photo of Penzance harbour at night. What I can't work out is what the line of lights are just at the bottom of the cloud line on the horizon. There is no land there, just sky. Some appear to be stars but there are a couple of strange lines of lights. Any ideas anyone?

View attachment 20109

I can see what those lights are. I have had the same effect (which I utilised in a promotional photo for one of my websites). It is a reveresed/ mirror image of the row of lights beneath it, caused by (I presume) lens refraction or something to do with light bouncing in the lens.

You can match the lights just below the cloud to the row of lights on the harbour. Start at the left of the row under the cloud and the right of the lights on the dock. You'll see the pattern matches, (i.e. Bright light, row of dimmer lights, super bright, gap, 4 super bright, larger gap, super bright etc etc).
 
I did later look and see that the lights did appear to match those below. I do have a UV filter on the lens, whether this may have caused the issue I'm not sure.
 
I think I've solved it. Recently my bar soap has developed teethmarks. Rats or mice are eating it (bad news that I have rats or mice). Perhaps they dragged away the previous bar into their mousehole.
That's how we found out we had mice, It was either my daughter chewing the soap or rodents.

James- if it helps our mouse preferred flowery flavours over coal tar. We did not find any other mousey evidence (we caught him in a humane trap and released near a local government establishment)
 
In my road today I saw a girl walking a ferret on a lead, something I've never seen in real life before.
When I lived in Hungary I saw people walking ferrets on leads. The Hungarian word for 'ferret' is 'ferret'! and a ferret on a lead will walk as close to the wall as possible. Comical to watch.
 
My friend walks her ferret. Also, my friend is a bit nutty.
1569142605939.png
 
https://listverse.com/2013/12/26/10-fascinating-facts-about-ferrets/

And #4 tells us about the use of ferrets for running wires through aeroplanes etc.
"....Their ability to worm their way through confined spaces has led several institutions to use them for running wire. In the 1960s, aircraft manufacturer Boeing used ferrets to string wire through planes. They were also used to run cable at Buckingham Palace for the 1981 nuptials of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Ferrets were also used to lay cables in tunnels underneath Greenwich Park to save London’s New Years’ Eve Millennium Concert. The ferrets were encouraged to scamper through the tunnels with bits of meat baiting them at the other end. "
 
In my road today I saw a girl walking a ferret on a lead, something I've never seen in real life before.

Many, many years ago my 'nutty' friend used to walk her ferret on a lead through the streets of our fairly large town. One of my neat coincidences occured one day when I was with her, this discussion although in the 'minor strangeness thread' and not the 'coincidences' has prompted me to post it.

We'd walked to the parade of shops, my toddler had gone into the shop with her leaving me outside with the ferret on his lead and my youngest in his push chair. The ferret always attracted comments and looks so it was no surprise when another young mother approached me for a chat. When we'd exhausted the ferret we moved onto our respective children.

'How old is your little one?' I told her and as the conversation progressed we established they were exactly the same age almost to the hour! Further more they'd both been born in the same hospital, and she thought it funny that she couldn't remember me as she could remember the other mothers.

So anyway after a bit of 'that's funnying' and umming and ahhing on my part I came clean and told her that he was my adopted son so she wouldn't remember me! However it turned out that she could indeed recall his birth mother and father and was able to furnish me with some interesting details which confirmed and greatly expanded on some of the things that the adoption society had told us! It meant so much to me to be able to picture his early hours/days as he was several weeks old before being placed with us, and also to get an idea of what his parents were like, it just filled in a gap! Respecting his birth parents privacy I didn't ask if she could recall any names and in any case what would I do with that sort of information? I'd really rather not know and I'd got the info that meant the most to me. :)

So thankyou to the Ferret and the Universe for arranging the introduction. The shared birthday thing is fairly common but I felt this one had bells and whistles on!!


You'd probably have to be wary of dogs - ferrets look a bit like stretched rats.

Ah but do they emit the same odours lol

Sollywos x
 
Last edited:
Back
Top