What the....
 

OK - so - I will probably just be opening myself up to ridicule here - but - 10 mins ago I opened the back door to let the dog out. I then switched the outside light off but had to wait while the dog decided it had heard something....

Looking up at the night sky (clear with the rising moon at my 1 o clock - back of house faces north), at my 11 o clock, I thought I was seeing a departing aircraft lights shining through a cloud (i.e. expanding 'V' Shape with the point (with very prominent light source) nearest me. I then realised the light was not moving (I have seen thousands of aircraft over the years taking all sorts of lines), for all the world this looked like a comet, or the apollo 'TLI' shots from earth. I called my missus who also saw the view.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/20...test.sav-hilde

The above image of a missile test in the US is not a million miles from what I've just seen, except the orientation was more 'source of light' toward me: 'tail' of light was more pronounced - sharper and more defined (duller in middle then brighter) with a definite 'edge'. Light source much brighter. After about two minutes of appearing more or less stationery, the light dissipated and the 'cloud' or tale dropped below the horizon to the north at about a fifth of the original brightness (initially the source of the light was very bright).

Anyone know of any reasonable explanation?

Just found out thanks to Facebook: It was Landsat 9 having just launched from Vandenberg AFB. Absolutely amazing view. Mystery solved!!

You're not alone! I saw it too whilst on the M25, but posted in the UFOs thread in JetBlast. I reckon at least 2,000 miles away so not really surprising that it appeared stationary. As well as it being the only space mission launch that I've seen, it was also a good reminder of why we use Great Circle routes - California being roughly NW from here.

(Thanks to treadigraphfor pointing this thread out).

I presume it's in a Polar orbit as it was launched out of Vandenberg?

I gather it's job is to be in phase with Landsat 8 so as to double the speed of data collection and that's in Polar orbit.

I didn't realise that the launch site was chosen according to planned orbit - every day's a schoolday!

As I recall KSC is fine for the normal inclined orbits but a polar orbit would involve a launch over habitation - I guess a NNW launch out of VDB is sufficiently polar inclined and avoids any landmass during the firey bit! If Wiggy sees this he'll no doubt be able to deny/confirm/detail...

Makes me think though that what you saw was more like 5000 miles away, somewhere off Seattle!

From reporting I saw, this wasn't the launch as such, but the de-orbit burn of (one of?) the stages. Looked impressive in the images!

That would make sense of the colour.

Not quite polar - 98.5º inclination. Like the previous Landsats, it's in a sun-synchronous orbit:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3404d7149d.png
https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/...acecraft-orbit