Unexpected Objects
March 6th, 2010
It always fun to get something unexpected when out imaging, something unexpected in the image that is rather than unexpected things not working. Before I have had planes across the Moon, red and green trails across an image from an airplanes wing lights, the very random trail of an out of focus bug or something zipping around high above.
Tonight though I got this whilst imaging the Leo triplet :
It looks like a satellite flare but from which of the many hundreds of objects in orbit I couldn’t say.
I took an image of the Triplet that night as well using a Canon 7D and a small 70mm ED piggybacked on my larger scope and got the same streak. The consensus of my local Astronomy club (Reading) is that it is a spinning Cosmos satellite that was predicted in the region at around 11:35pm
Peter
Thanks Peter, I mentioned it to the members of the Basingstoke society who were online at the time but we didn’t have much luck tracking down the source. Nice to know what it was!
My pleasure. We both seem to have caught Cosmos 2433. Looking at my image and superimposing yours on it there is a clear difference from our respective locations, albeit we must have been within 20 miles of each other. Mine was taken in Lower Earley but the streak appears to start a fraction further on from M65 than yours and is further to the South and East in the same field of view.
Peter
Tim
Can you please confirm your timing. Reading AS is getting somewhat obsessed with our two images! I can time my camera as taking my streak at 11:50 that night, but the camera was 3 minutes slow. The laptop was running on the right time for the download but a difference of 30 minutes between us for those streaks is beyond the likely range – but they are so identical there has to be a relationship. Same angle and fractionally different in start and end point, as well as displacement (mine is to the West, not East per my first comment).
I’d be grateful if you could email me about this and I’ll send you my image in return.
Peter
Checking the time stamp on my image the camera reports that it took this frame at 22:56 on the 6th of March, the camera time appears to be fast by around 4 minutes. Do you reset your camera clock over winter to adjust for GMT? I’ve not thought to change mine so the hour difference could be accounted for there as mine remains permanently set to UTC for no other reason than I forget to change it.
I’m just down in Basingstoke so not