STRANGE objects have been spotted in the skies over South Lakeland.

Robin St Clair was writing at the window of his home on Milnthorpe Road, Kendal, last Sunday morning at around 1.28am when he glanced out and witnessed what he described as a " spectacular phenomenon."

"It was suddenly lit up like daylight," he said.

"I looked out just in time to see what looked like a comet streaking out of the night sky."

He said the object - which was bright enough to light up the car park of K Village opposite Mr St Clair's home - was visible for a couple of seconds before it disappeared over the eastern horizon of Birk Hagg/Heron Hill.

"It was a huge ball - almost the size of the moon - of brilliant pale blue light with a long tail of flashing stardust, like a firework."

Mr St Clair was so impressed by the spectacle he drew a picture of it.

"I felt privileged to have witnessed such an extraordinary spectacle," said Mr St Clair.

"But there must be other Kendalians who saw this marvellous phenomenon."

Sylvia Shepherd also reported seeing the comet-like object from her home in Patterdale when she got out of bed at around 5am to let her dog out, She said it was about half the size of the moon and visible for about four seconds as it moved across the sky.

One possible explanation for the phenomenon is the comet Ikeya-Zhang coming onto view from the earth for the first time since 1661.

Ikeya-Zhang, pronounced ee-KAY-uh-JONG, is the brightest comet to come close to earth since Halle-Bop five years ago.

The comet is in fact much larger than the moon in overall size, including the tail, currently at least 10 moon diameters or 5 degrees.

Comets are clumps of rock and ice created when the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago from the same material that made the planets and the Sun.

When a comet's orbit takes it far from the Sun the low temperature of deep space keeps it frozen.

But as it comes close to the Sun, it heats up, emitting gases and the dust that reflects the Sun's rays making the comet visible from the Earth.

Ikeya-Zhang passed closest to the Sun on March 18, and passes the Earth at its closest point, just 37.5 million miles, on April 29/30.

But Nick White, secretary of Furness and South Lakeland Astronomical Society, said that what Mr St Clair and Mrs Shepherd saw was unlikely to have been Ikeya-Zhang because it is slow moving and fairly dim in the sky.

He said there was no obvious explanation for what they described, but said it could conceivably have been a satellite.

He explained there were several satellites orbiting the earth with large solar panels.

There was a phenomenon, very annoying for astronomers, where the solar panels catch the sun and momentarily appeared very bright in the night sky and could even light up parts of the ground.

Mr White said he witnessed the phenomenon himself while out stargazing on Woodland Fell in South Lakeland at around 10pm on Saturday night.

Anyone who wants to see Ikeya-Zhang should look into the sky to the North West at around 10pm.

The comet will appear as a bright smudge in the sky below the W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia.