Yesterday afternoon, I was able to watch a solar eclipse [1]; while it wasn't total in Germany, it still covered 89–90% of the sun. I was fascinated by how nature reacted—the birds suddenly fell silent—even though, if you looked at the sun, you hardly noticed the 90% reduction in its intensity. It was still bright, but a neighbor had brought home welding shields (visors with dark protective glass) from work, allowing us to observe the eclipse clearly. Later that night came the Perseids [2], a meteor shower that recurs during the first half of August. I saw a few shooting stars falling to earth. It also made me reflect on the fact that the Eifel region—being outside the metropolitan areas of North Rhine-Westphalia—offers quite good conditions for stargazing; in our village (Diefenbach has 70 inhabitants), you can very often see the Milky Way, just as I did that night. Yet, it doesn't compare to what you can see in the Mongolian sky.
Last month, I was at Achit Nuur (Ачит нуур) [3], where we had set up camp south of the lake. There, and at other locations, we had the opportunity to admire a night sky filled with stars, particularly the Milky Way. It was the perfect combination of zero light pollution, the absence of moonlight, and dry air. The best night sky, however, was at our camp near the source of the Mukhart River (Мухартын гол) [4]—though that is beside the point for the story at hand.
It was just before the end of evening twilight, and the sky had already turned almost black. I stepped out of the tent and walked a short distance away to brush my teeth. This is significant because it explains why I couldn't take a photo: I had neither a camera nor a mobile phone with me. I then saw a bright object—appearing almost like a point of light—moving from west to east. It grew brighter, and a spiral—also glowing white—formed around the point. Both objects moved in parallel before fading out. However, the point of light brightened again, and a spiral formed once more; both grew bright before fading out again. On the third occurrence, I shouted for someone to take a photo. Someone came out of the tent and was able to observe the phenomenon, but didn't have a mobile phone at hand either. After the two objects had traversed about two-thirds of the sky at an elevation of approximately 75–80°, they vanished completely.
We discussed what we had actually seen for a while, but we were unable to formulate a conclusive hypothesis. Do you have an idea?
