"RED IN THE MORNING, SAILORS......."

After over a week of solid fog, then a few days of beautiful sunshine, it looks like we're in for some typical northwest Fall weather......

POTENTIAL FLARE ACTIVITY

The Sun. Circled regions indicate potential for flare activity.

(Click image for larger version)

STRANGE OBJECT????

Using a series of long-exposure images, I like to scan the sky for any meteors or other interesting activity. Last night (Oct. 28), I had my camera running from 7 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. Other than some aircraft and satellites crossing the sky, the only thing that caught my attention was this "blinking" object (crossing left to right at the top). Since this time-lapse video was made from several 30-second images, anything moving across the sky would show as a long (and very brief) streak. This object, however, must have been a very, very slow moving satellite and spinning in a way that only part of it would reflect the sunlight from below the horizon (which would cause the "blinking" effect.)

According to my estimates, this object was visible for approximately 39 minutes!

This view is centered on 87° east, and 59° elevation, and covers the time from 10:39 p.m. PDT to 11:04 p.m. PDT on October 29, 2013.