NUFORC Sighting 170473

Occurred: 2022-07-15 20:45 Local
Reported: 2022-07-16 06:23 Pacific
Duration: Roughly 5 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Location details: My back yard

Shape: Light

Bright light hovering in northern sky.

I was setting up my telescope in the back yard for a night of astrophotography. I am familiar with where north, magnetic north and celestial north are in my yard and set up my tripod during the day roughly pointed at the selection North Pole near Polaris. The sun had not fully set and there were no stars visible at this time. I estimate that I will be able to use Polaris to polar align my scope once its dark enough in about 30 minutes. I look up and see a very bright star close to Polaris. It catches me off guard as I should not be able to see any stars at this time, but it is definitely a star and a bright one at that. I almost convinced myself that it might be the North Star and begin the alignment procedure when I realize it’s too far off to be Polaris. I then pull out my iPad to use Stellarium software to find out which star I’m looking at cause I now think it might be a super nova that just exploded. I watched this object for roughly 5 minutes before deciding to get a picture with my phone. I line up the shot then decide to switch to video to zoom in. The object immediately blinks out and is gone. It was roughly the magnitude of Venus while there was still sun light. It did not move at all or fluctuate in luminosity.

Posted 2022-09-09