Strange Object In Telescope

[Herzy]

The other night I was looking randomly through the sky in my telescope, which is a 90mm aperture 1200mm focal length maksutov. Everything went as it normally does until I saw this strange object moving across the eyepeice. I followed it for a while, and noticed it was moving in a perfectly straight line. It's probably worth noting that I couldn't see it with my eyes only in the telescope.

Now I thought it had to be a rocket body or some sort of satellite, but upon further inspection I realized that it was pulsing in brightness. Every few seconds it would gradually increase in brightness and then decrease. Any ideas as to what this is?

Edit: Sorry, just realized this is in the wrong category, but I'm not sure how to delete it.

[ChrisLX200]

It's a satellite of some sort, nearly all of them rotate or tumble in some way and as the many panels catch sunlight they vary in brightness.

ChrisH

[paul mc c]

Probably a tumbling satalite.

[Moonshane]

Sounds like a tumbling satellite

[Stu]

Most likely a tumbling satellite or old rocket body of some sort. As they rotate they reflect more or less sunlight so tend to pulse on a regular cycle.

[Moonshane]

Lol

At least we agree!

 

[Herzy]

That's pretty cool to have seen it just by randomly looking in the sky!

[ChrisLX200]

1 minute ago, Herzy said:

That's pretty cool to have seen it just by randomly looking in the sky!

That's one way of looking at it - but these pieces of junk frequently fly through your FOV when imaging and there are thousands of them up there!

ChrisH

[Pompey Monkey]

3 minutes ago, Herzy said:

That's pretty cool to have seen it just by randomly looking in the sky!

It's surprising how often these kind of objects pass across the field of view!

[Waldemar]

It is another kind of pollution:  we already have to deal with air pollution, light pollution, now we have visual pollution as well. and at a point that stuff  will come down...

What happened to the land and the oceans on earth is happening in the sky, too. When will they learn?

Maybe when a piece of space junk lands into their own living room...

[todd8137]

Clingon bird of prey ?

pat

[Dave In Vermont]

Here's a nice, little freeware-program to help you find & identify the satellites zipping over our heads 24/7. It's getting mighty crowded up there!

Previsat will also help you know when an Iridium Communications-Satellite will give off a flare (flash of bright light as it turns and reflects the Sun) to be seen. So here you go:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/previsat/

There are many other satellite-tracking programs available. But I like this one the best.

Enjoy -

Dave

[brantuk]

I think it was Tim playing with the dimmer switch on the ISS lol

[Herzy]

Nah, its just an alien that happened to be cruising around the solar system!