this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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I either saw this or maybe a twinkling Sirius. I was on the balcony and noticed a white dot that was flashing different colors like red and green. I asked my partner what a UFO looks like lol. It never moved, just kept flashing light like a disco star. I looked it up and came across twinkling, and specifically Sirius. I'm just now seeing that Saturn could have been visible
The light flickering on stars and planets has to do with the Earth's atmosphere. In a dark sky look straight up and the stars directly above you will blink much less, and as you look at stars closer and closer to the horizon, they start to blink more and more. The worse your overall seeing conditions are for the night, the more intense the blinking can get.