Can You Spot The Meteor?

[Angela Spangler]

I was out the other night working on getting some night shots of the stars. Looked at this photo tonight and saw I caught a meteor. Pretty cool.

 

[sam7771]

Great shot!

you fail before sucsess

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Looks more like an airplane.

 

[Heitz]

Have to agree with Bitter. Did you notice this only after you looked at the photo or during the capture? Meteors move at speeds unlikely to leave only a partial streak.... that is, unless you are really that lucky, in which case, nice job.

 

[TwoTwoLeft]

I'm gonna have to say it's not an airplane.

Most airplanes are going to have strobes which leave little dots behind next to the streaks of the landing lights. Like this: airplane, long exposure | Flickr - Photo Sharing!.

If that's an airplane, it's way the hell up there. Airplanes that high usually don't leave their landing lights on. The much fainter position lights will be on, but the image looks too underexposed to capture them.

 

[pgriz]

There are three possibilities - Meteor, plane, satellite.
A meteor streak usually has a rising brightness profile, then a fade. Moves like dickens and creates the trail in less than 1/10 sec.
A plane usually has its port/starboard strobes on, periodically blining. Moves slowly.
A satellite "usually" is very faint (ISS and Meridian satellites being exceptions), moves fast or slow depending on how high it is, almost never blinks, and leaves a trail that is even throughout.

This one looks like a satellite to me, but the resolution of the image posted isn't enough to really tell.

 

[Angela Spangler]

Definitely could be a satellite I guess. Saw a few of them that night. Only noticed the streak while editing the photo. Still thought it was cool.