A Summer of Extraordinary Night Sights: Likely Not Over for Washington, Oregon, Coastlines

Published 09/25/25 at 6:25 a.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Portland, Oregon) – It has been an eventful summer in the night skies above the Pacific Northwest, and judging by the events of the last three nights it's not quite over. There was a lull, to be sure, between the constant darting lights that tapered off in August and what I've encountered since Tuesday. The last week in September seriously and abruptly picked up . Photo Manuela Durson Fine Arts From this summer in Bandon, Manuela Durson caught the galaxy and at least one satellite.

And it's about to get interesting again. Comets are coming – or at least one (more on that this week). There are a couple of minor yet sometimes-spectacular meteor showers soon as well. Those in Oregon, Washington and yes, even the coastlines are in for some nocturnal eye candy.

Yet it all may pale compared to what happened over summer. I hope more of you were looking up a lot on darker nights.

For starters, there's a rather significant thing that starts happening in April or May and seems to get overlooked. I've nicknamed it the “season of satellites.” It typically lasts through late summer, but by mid-July starts to wane considerably. You're going to see a lot more satellites than at any time of year, basically. This has to do with the tilt of the northern hemisphere towards the sun around the summer solstice, an angle that lights up far more of these little orbital gizmos than usual.

To my human eyes it was astounding. Yet now with the serious proliferation of Space X rigs and other sky wanderers, it's actually getting annoying to many photogs around the world. Indeed, while I was frothing over the mass of lights zooming above, Maneula Durson on the south Oregon coast bemoaned their existence. Her night shots were littered with them to the point where post-processing photos took on new levels of complication.

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On my late night walks – mostly in the Portland area – I encountered some bizarre sights, however. There was hardly a single night where I saw nothing, and usually multiple things (if clouds were clear). Even if they weren't, I spotted speckle-like rovers in between clouds. It was glorious.

A recap:

Orion and the Plaides above Portland in September. Also note the series of stars that look like a Flying V guitar.

Major strings of satellites were much more prevalent. One night I caught a run of 12 moving one after another. Then a run of 18 a night or two later. I lost count. Sometimes other random satellites came from other directions and criss-crossed their paths.

On a few evenings I saw pairs of satellites where one appeared to be chasing the other, both going slightly different speeds and directions but somehow still in a kind of chase. I talked to OMSI's Jim Todd about it – and it's not uncommon. But I've never seen it in all my years of stargazing.

Another new sight for me was satellites “flashing.” There's no doubt it's a satellite because it moves at a speed much higher than aircraft (which are always flashing). But this is different: it fades in an out of existence, but going in a straight line. They would often dim and brighten every few to ten seconds. The first sight of this left my head spinning.

Then Todd told me this is what they do if they are rotating (which makes the sun glint off them and then not glint); and if they are tumbling. Wow. That floored me. They tumble?

Not longer after learning that, I saw one apparently burn up. This one actually made me jump a bit.

Suddenly, from the west, what seemed to be a satellite appeared, but abruptly it was a white hot object leaving a white, glowing and very straight trail behind it. Immediately it was obviously going faster than any satellite I've ever seen - and it grew in size. That's what startled me a tad.

Photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection: Comet NEOWISE seen from Beaverton in 2020

This trail was actually comprised of multiple streaks behind it - like bands. Some thicker than others but all very straight lines. The trail as a whole was extremely long. I'm only half joking here: you know those movie poster graphics of Star Trek movies where you see lines behind the nacelles? It actually looked like that: not unlike some Klingon vessel dropping out of warp.

Yet all this lasted just a few seconds. It was enough for me to realize: holy crap, I just saw perhaps millions of dollars burning up.

There was another similar sight early in June: a giant white ball came out of the south, looking like an aircraft. But as I watched it head up the sky and waiting for it to flash – it didn't. Instead, it scooted along far faster than a jet and yet didn't get much larger. This - I think - was likely the ISS just getting lit up brightly by the sun (but not sure if the ISS runs that direction).

Then, just this week, off to the north the spectacle returned. What I think was the ISS again was getting lit brightly about 3 a.m. Then it turned a curious red / orange, which almost made it look as if it was burning up, but I'm guessing this was simply the object getting tinted by our atmosphere (like the low summer full moons are).

Wednesday morning I see a major shooting star – so long it took up a fifth of the sky. Just now, on Thursday morning, I see another. Both went far faster than any satellite but slower than meteors usually do, which according to what I've found on the American Meteor Society's page they could well be the tail end of the chi Cygnids.

I can't tell you how often my jaw dropped in the last few months. Numerous times I started singing out tunes like Mew's “Satellites,” Yes' “Arriving UFO” or any of those Jethro Tull tunes about stars. Let's face it: the universe is a Prog thing - almost exclusively.

How to see all this yourself? Get thee to a dark spot after midnight. If you're on the coast or in rural Oregon or Washington: great. That's more than half the battle. If you're in Salem, hit Bush Park. In Portland, there's numerous urban green spaces away from lights and with wide-open views.

Just get out there. If nothing else, just take in the awe-inspiring spectacle of the stars for 20 minutes. It turns out, Oregon / Washington skies can seriously surprise, like the aurora borealis unexpectedly caught in Astoria recently.

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