Long story short, I've been noticing these short flashes in the sky, almost like a camera flash from high up. They're really bright, like brighter than venus or even a plane in the distance, and flash for a fraction of a second. As I said, just like a camera flash from a kilometre away. Usually they'll flash with a period of 10-30 seconds for a few times (or maybe I just didn't watch for long enough), and seem to drift a small amount. Can't quite tell between the flashes if it is a straight line or not. There are countless other people who have seen them too.
My suspicion: a high-altitude sattelite or piece of space debris rolling over and catching the sun. The only problem with this is that it seems way too bright for that. Can't be an iridium flare because those grow brighter and then darker over about 15 seconds, they aren't just a flash.
To the point, are there any people willing to act as a secondary observer so as to triangulate the altitude? then it would be a simple matter of looking for passes of tracked objects at the time and see if any match. I am in tasmania, aus, so needing someone in mainland australia, the higher up the better (for more accuracy). Would need to set up some form of camera to observe it, higher the fov the better to capture more of the sky, and mounted on a levelled surface/tripod.
@mightyspaceman true. not seen them repeat, but I have noticed them in the same spot of sky on different nights, about 20 deg right of the North Star, very odd
@SaveTheOkapi Hmmmmm. I'm >42S, so similar-ish. I think the uploader of the video I mentioned is around 30N.
from what I recall, there hasn't been much consistency between location in the sky...I think one of the first times I saw it directly upwards, the other was pretty closely east around post-twilight, roughly 30-40deg up. last time I saw it SW at I would say 50deg.
and now that I think about it I think I actually saw it a few years ago. NW-ish and probably 70-80deg. flashed quite a few times in the same direction.
@otte_homan seen starlink, that's entirely different. While starlink looks insane and is the cause for many sightings, it's a little short-thinking to just immediately say it is the cause for something.
starlink is a string of dots that move across the sky then fade out. this is singular, intermittent flashes of light that slowly drift.
again, probably some highly reflective surface catching the light.
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