NUFORC Sighting 160179

Occurred: 2020-07-25 22:15 Local
Reported: 2020-10-25 13:05 Pacific
Duration: 5-10 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Black Diamond, WA, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Group of several dozen bluish lights in Southern Sky (vicinity of Jupiter and Saturn) moving from east to west

My daughters and I were at a park in Black Diamond which had good horizon visibility. We used my telescope and a new lens I had acquired to see Jupiter and Saturn.

While I was looking for the NEOWISE comet (northern sky), my daughter approached me and eagerly pointed to the southern sky in the vicinity of Jupiter. There were a group of a few dozen round, bluish lights moving slowly across the southern sky from east to west. The brightness was a bit less than a star or planet. Much of the SEATAC air traffic is visible from that vantage point and I’m convinced these were not commercial or small aircraft. They were also not satellites like Starlink – I’ve seen those and know what they look like.

I had 5 or 10 minutes to watch with the naked eye and through my telescope (6” Dobsonian at 48x magnification). The objects’ light intensity remained mostly constant and when viewed through the telescope the lights appeared round in shape.

The movement of the group appeared to be in a loose formation. I tracked 3 of them through the telescope for 30-60 seconds and their relative position to each other remained mostly fixed.

Eventually the lights began to fade or spread out enough that not more than a few were visible at a time.

Posted 2020-12-23