Night Sky Photo Mystery

RacePhoto · Jun 29, 2022

Mystery Object in my photo. This is just the 1 1/2 hours that it moved from the NW to SE - the arrows show the direction of travel. The stars are actually standing still and the Earth is rotating East which makes the star trails move from Right to left. So this object is going faster, the other direction. I thought of Geosynchronous which in theory would be a dot, standing still.

Here's the entire night sky, just for reference. It's up above Polaris and to the NE.

Anyone have any ideas, what does this. If it was an airplane or satellite or something passing, it wouldn't take 1 1/2 hours. More like a minute or less for those normally.

480sparky · Jun 29, 2022

Meteor.

It didn't take that long for it to create that streak in the image. Likely, just a few seconds at most.

Rickbb · Jun 29, 2022

Starlink or some other man made object. Lots of junk out there now and growing.

RacePhoto · Jul 1, 2022

Rickbb said:
Starlink or some other man made object. Lots of junk out there now and growing.

Interesting idea. Someone else suggested weather Sat with a Polar position.

Since Starlink is new and these didn't appear in past years, that makes me wonder.

480sparky said:
Meteor.

It didn't take that long for it to create that streak in the image. Likely, just a few seconds at most.

Sorry, I look at every frame, it's in hundreds, moving dot in each one, not a streak that I just missed. Each is 30 second exposure and the composite was 1 1/2 hours of images.

Looks like there's another similar trace, just above and to the right.

In better news, I just found out that the state of Wisconsin has declared some places, dark sky. I have only found this one so far. It's on the Northern tip of the state, on the Great Lakes.

"Newport State Park in Door County is the first and only park in Wisconsin to receive an official “Dark Sky Park” designation from the International Dark-Sky Association. Views of the night sky here will be brighter and more detailed than anywhere else in the state.

Camping at Newport is not for the faint of heart, as all 14 campsites will require you to carry your equipment 1 to 2.5 miles from the parking area to your site."

My eventually goal in this project has been to place a camera on the shore of Lake Michigan, facing NE for Perseids. But all of that means a nice clear night (I don't mind the Moon so much) no rain, and everything is battery powered. Leave it at the state park, Harrington Beach, and return in the morning.

No garage lights, no city lights, no freeway/highway or traffic, or anything else.

480sparky · Jul 1, 2022

You didn't state this was a composite image.

My guess then becomes a high-orbit satellite.

RacePhoto · Jul 2, 2022

480sparky said:
You didn't state this was a composite image.

My guess then becomes a high-orbit satellite.

I guess I assumed (oops my error) that 1 1/2 hours of images would have indicated that. Sorry. Here's the software, it's free

Startrails.de

wfooshee · Jul 2, 2022

Meteors are quite common in a star trails sequence, as are aircraft, which appear as a line of dots as their strobes flash.

On nights with meteor showers, I leave the camera running the same way I do for star trails, but then actually align the stars so I have a static image of the sky, with the meteor trails showing. (I don't have a tracking kit that can move my camera to compensate for the Earth's rotation.

RacePhoto · Jul 4, 2022

OK drop the other shoe. :loyal:

How do you align the stars?

Quite correct, I don't have a tracking telescope, just a camera on a tripod that takes an image, depending on which settings and lens, either every 20 seconds 15mm or every 30 seconds 8mm, all night long.

And yes there's all kinds of things up there. ISS passing which is something, the satellites, the airplanes which can go any which way, and the mystery object that I've never seen in a set before. (oh and cars, city light pollution, fireflies, bats and sometimes, something trips the security light out back and I get lighted trees for a couple frames.)

This is all good fun.

The original question image, being tossed back and forth with a friend. He's guessing and I mean we're both guessing, it could be a polar orbit weather satellite or Star-link. What goes the opposite direction? NW to SE instead of East to West like the stars.

And yes, that's only visible in the startrails using about 1 1/2 hours of photos. There is no single image with that streak, it's created by Startrails, I watched the startrails software run and saw the streak appearing as it traced onto the screen.

I could make a timelapse video, but since it's only one dot of light, nothing is noticeable.

UFO! :alien:

But please how do you get a nice alignment like that, so the meteorites appear better. Also what about eliminating airplanes and sats?

Older version. The coil around the lens is because I'm in Wisconsin. It prevents dew and frost (up to a point) This is an early morning and the white on the tripod is frost. The lens is clear.

And yes, this is the 100% portable, battery powered, night sky setup.

wfooshee · Jul 15, 2022

My alignment of stars was a tedious, manual process of layering in Photoshop, setting a frame on top of another one, slightly transparent so I could see through it. Set it to full opaque, add the next frame. Once all are in there, use a layer blend tool to get the full depth of all the images, not just the top one.

RacePhoto · Jul 15, 2022

wfooshee said:
My alignment of stars was a tedious, manual process of layering in Photoshop, setting a frame on top of another one, slightly transparent so i could see through it. Set it to full opaque, add the next frame. Once all are in there, use a layer blend tool to get the full depth of all the images, not just the top one.

Thank you, I was hoping that some software did that... :grumpy:

While I do some tedious computer challenges, I don't think 2,000 images is going to be on the list right now. Maybe I could pick only the ones with extra data, find them and add, one by one, and see how that goes.

Thanks for the information and answer. Nice work!

wfooshee · Jul 15, 2022

Yeah, I've only done that on this ONE situation. A tracking mount for the camera would have done the same thing, and it would have been a matter of seconds to stack the frames and set the layer blend, but I have no such device.

Warhorse · Jul 15, 2022

I won't say it's aliens...but you know.

AlanKlein · Jul 16, 2022

Regarding the original photo, that white line next to the red marker arrow is not straight. If you put a straight edge up to it, it's a slight arc. Why is that?