Night Sky Photo Mystery

[RacePhoto]

I think that I found a new and maybe the right answer. It must be a slow one, but this would explain the blinking light, not a star, not an airplane and not a meteorite.

Tumbling Satellites​

Also keep an eye out for tumbling satellites. These are satellites that are spinning out of control, some of them are discarded rocket bodies and others are just malfunctioning satellites. As they are spinning out of control they flash periodically, blinking as they cross the sky.

 

[480sparky]

A tumbling satellite would likely create multiple dashes... like Morse code.

 

[Lonnie1212]

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.

There is something fascinating about being out with the camera at night. Being out in the countryside doing astrophotography. Enjoying your post and watching the responses. Thank you

 

[RacePhoto]

A tumbling satellite would likely create multiple dashes... like Morse code.

I think it did. The only problem I have with any answer, mine or others, is the object took 1.5 hours to travel that distance, going against the direction that stars naturally appear to be moving. (as it the Earth that rotates, not the stars) I've never seen a satellite take more than minutes to traverse the sky.

If it was a plane, it's too slow. A natural orbiting object, it moves the wrong direction. Best so far has been a failing satellite, that's tumbling and reflecting or not, creating a line of dots.

 

[RacePhoto]

There is something fascinating about being out with the camera at night. Being out in the countryside doing astrophotography. Enjoying your post and watching the responses. Thank you

Yes, there is, and it's surprising how many nights are just no good for this. Weather, which would include cloud free skies, not just precipitation. The Moon which can just trash everything. I'm lucky to have located someplace, rural enough, that the "big" cities are small towns and I'm a few miles from Lake Michigan. There's still light pollution, but not as much as there could be if I was near more populated areas.

I can either go along with a parallel discussion, in this thread or start a new one, if anyone thinks that would be better.

I have fun. I've been muddling along at this for years. There are many better ways, cameras and types of equipment, but mine is a simple setup, using free software and old cameras.

 

[480sparky]

...the object took 1.5 hours to travel that distance,...

How do you know this?

 

[RacePhoto]

How do you know this?

Maybe it got lost in all the posts of how the image was made. The images I make are taken one every 20 seconds. I start the camera around dusk and let it run, until Sunrise. Sometimes I use 30 seconds.

Look at the first posts where you asked the same question and I answered.

Meteor.

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

I look at the files, which have the time included, and it was 76 images from the first image to the last, that included the object. It took about half an hour for the 76 images used, which were made into a composite image. If I post a single image, it's just a dot, without any reference.

See the streaks, those are stars, which all move the same direction. The star trails took 90 minutes for the stars to move that far.

https://i.postimg.cc/Sx8BDSvM/2022-06-27-mystery-object-crop-marked.jpg

I can't link self hosted images anymore here for some reason.

The first frame is 2022 0627 at 00:46:50 and the last one it appears in is 01:13:42 I must have used the entire time of the sequence. The object crosses against the natural revolution, moving the wrong direction. It took 28 minutes, which was frames 7512 to 7588. While every frame is 20 seconds, there is camera processing time involved. They come out around 22 seconds in this case.

01: 13:18 is #7587, 01:13:42 is #7588 and that's 24 seconds, it's not a stop watch, and when there are more frames and depending on how light they are, the processing time varies.

Short version of all of that, about a half hour sequence, which was overlapped using startrails.de into one single image, with the track of the mystery object crossing in the NE sky.

ps the red dots are hot pixels. Canon 40-D set to 20 seconds, ISO 1600, manual focus, I'd have to look at my notes as the F/stop is also manual. Probably f/4

 

[480sparky]

The fact that it appears out of nowhere, gets brighter, then dims back to nothing.... and now I see it's curved..... I'd say it's a military satellite.

 

[RacePhoto]

The fact that it appears out of nowhere, gets brighter, then dims back to nothing.... and now I see it's curved..... I'd say it's a military satellite.

Ah ha, another idea that I hadn't thought of.

Also just a note, I haven't seen this again and I did many nights last year. I look at every set of image, one by one, before I do the star trails or the animations.