Lights in the Sky

On 21st September, the three us were on the terrace watching
the night sky. The sky was very clear and we had turned off all the house
lights in order to see the fainter stars.

At 1055 pm we saw a bright yellow light, low on the horizon to the East,
over Loch Sunart. It initially resembled the landing light of an aircraft
and moved Westwards at about the speed of a low-flying jet. As it passed
to the South of us it was at an elevation of about 30-45 degrees with the
colour of a sodium street light and lit up the whole sky. It left a trail
of connected smaller orange lights, as if beads on a thread.

As it passed to the West, the brilliant leading main light began to dim
but we could still see the trailing lights as it passed out of sight near
the Western horizon.

We viewed its passage for about 120 degrees horizontally, with a maximum
elevation of 30-45 degrees. From first sighting to its disappearance was
approximately 10-12 seconds. It was completely silent.

Our interpretation was that this was a piece of satellite debris
re-entering the atmosphere. We did not think it was a meteor as it moved
far too slowly. However, BBC News did publish this article the following day.

Many thanks to Nicky, Tony and Nick for the story (house-sitting at the Diary residence)