Strange light in the sky A few weeks ago my daughter phoned me to say she was looking at a very large bright object in the sky in the direction of the Preseli hills. She wondered if it was a planet. I went out to have a look and sure enough this was much brighter and much larger than a star or planet. I looked at it for several minutes and quite suddenly it just, for want of a better phrase, went out. Just completely gone.

Last night I saw something very similar. Again it was much larger than a star but this time appeared yellowish in colour. I kept looking as I was doing a few small outdoor jobs and then, although I didn't see it happen this time, it suddenly disappeared. I am mystified as to what these lights could have been. Looked on internet and hoped someone else may have seen them but no luck.
If you have a date and time you can go to Flightradar24 and recreate all of the planes that flew over the area. An oncoming large body jet can look a lot like a yellow star if it has its "headlights" turned on, and if it is coming in your direction and descending, it can look surprisingly motionless. Since the light is focused forward, it can suddenly dim if the plane changes direction.

The lovely NATS video A Day Over the UK shows a substantial amount of East/West air traffic in that area, including several flights off of the main corridor. 

However if you watched it for 20 minutes, this can obviously be ruled out.

Venus and Mars were too close to the horizon at 21:00 GMT in the UK, but I recommend you play with in-the-sky.org a bit. Choose Planetarium. It should know your approximate location based on your internet access so as long as the location is roughly correct the only think you need to do is choose a date and time to recreate, and enjoy! I hear the site works on phones nicely as well.



above: Screen shot fro in-the-sky.org.