Date: 05/02/2016
Time: 04:30 am
Place: Potchefstroom
Submitted by: Chaven Yenketswamy
Report:
I was up early and went outside. Some of the bigger planets were already risen.Jupiter towards the Western Horizon and the crescent moon and Venus in the East. The bright star Porrima facing North. I decided to get my sky binoculars 15×70 mm which are sometimes do to look at the positions of the moons of Jupiter. I could only see one moon to the left and was wondering where the others where.
I held down my binoculars for a while looked up at the sky an saw a bright star like object almost as large as Jupiter.It had a whitish luminosity. I immediately fixed my binoculars to this strange object. It was clearly similar in appearance to a bright star. However after a few seconds its glow dimished substantially to that of a less prominent star but still travelling in a Northly direction. I gage its speed was similar to that of a passenger airliner.
I followed the point like object for about two minutes before it was out of visibility.
Iam curious to know what type of spacecraft can glow so brightly to a magnitude as bright as Jupiter and then switch off and reduce its intensity.