Strange sighting in M45

[Kirscovitch]

Tonight was a beautiful evening here. Crystal clear sky. Only problem is I was at work.

I have been bringing my bins with me lately though. I manage to sneak out back every once in a while when things get slow. 

So anyway I was out back at one point getting a few views in. Spotted M31 which was a nice surprise considering I was in the middle of town. The moon was looking spectacular as well. Then I focused on M45.

I'm not sure exactly what time it was. M45 was pretty much to the south and not that high over head. Orion was partially visible through a nearby row of trees.

I was resting my elbows on a garbage dumpster to steady the view and as I'm looking at the sisters, a bright object sped through the field of view heading NNE.

It actually startled me and my first thought was a plane. 

Taking my eyes away from the bins I looked and there wasn't anything there. No plane lights anywhere. I brought the bins back up and searched in the direction it was heading but could not locate it again. 

My thoughts now are that it could have been a satellite. (Not one be easily convinced of a UFO!)

If it was a satellite, is there anyway to tell which one it was? It was a spectacular view. Right through the middle of 45.

[ronin]

Very likely a satellite there are a lot of them belting around, as in thousands.

Site to look them up are calsky.com and heavens-above.com

There are others but I have no idea of others.

Have managed to get something out of calsky once or twice. I think it is the one that reads the IP address and uses that for location, OK for satellites in general but for iridium flares you need a better location. So I tend to use Heavens-above, however I think calsky has more satellite data on it.

Every attempt to tell calsky my actual location has left me confused as to what it is actually using as I think it may be using the right co-ordinates but the name from the IP, which is about 20 miles away usually.

[c3po]

I doubt you'd be the only one to have been startled by a satellite flare right in the FOV of your binos or 'scope! I certainly have, especially at high mag.

luckily, there are ways and means available to us that make the task of identifying possible candidates for what we've seen overhead. My personal favourite is the Heavens Above website. Basically bring up the page, set your locale using the map to almost pinpoint your location if you like, click update and away you go, you'll be taken back to the main page, from here you can click the 'Daily Predictions..' link, and there you'll see a list of all satellites due over that day and customised for past days too.

EDIT: Doh, beaten to it by Ronin!

[Kirscovitch]

I've seen hundreds and hundreds of satellites with the naked eye. A dim "star" that moves across the sky.

This one however did not look like the others. I can't imagine that even at 10x it would appear that much different than the naked eye but who knows! Never seen one with any magnification before.

[Ben Smith]

I'm goin for satellite too. I've seen them through bins and my scope and looked up and seen nothing. Sometimes I've seen birds fly past really high in the sky through the bins too

[ollypenrice]

Satellite. What you describe is classic. The magnification vastly increases the apparent speed because your field of view comes down from almost 180 degrees to just a few degrees in binoculars. This means your binocular FOV might be crossed in half a second while your naked eye view, even without moving your head, might need 15 seconds to be crossed. And you can extend that, of course, by turning you head or moving your eyes. The other possibility would be a meteor, perhaps a small one since you saw no trace in looking away. They don't hang about!

Olly

[theclearskiesofthemoon]

My best estimate is that it was Kosmos 2058. It passed in front of M45 in the middle of wisconsin that night at around 3.4 brightness heading north east.

It's an almost 24 year old Russian satellite(it's birthday is on the 30th).