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UFO near Mars. Any ideas?

billyharris72

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billyharris72

billyharris72

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Was looking at Mars last night sometime around midnight (probably just before). No luck with it at all, but while I was trying to get something more tangible than a boiling red blob something passed slowly across my field of view.

It looked like a dim shooting star, but slower - took a couple of seconds to cross at about x150. I looked with my naked eye and could not see any sign of a plane or similar, and the object was not as bright as that anyway.

Does anyone have any idea what it might have been? One thought was a satellite, but is there a way to check what would have been visible at that particular time?

Thanks,

Billy.

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Aussie Dave

Aussie Dave

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Yep, sounds like a satellite. There's dim ones, bright ones, ones that even flash from the sun reflecting off their surfaces while they rotate. Some last briefly while other can last up to a minute, roughly. It could have been a large piece of space junk. I usually see satellites most nights here with shooting objects.

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JohnSadlerAstro

JohnSadlerAstro

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37 minutes ago, Aussie Dave said:

Yep, sounds like a satellite. There's dim ones, bright ones, ones that even flash from the sun reflecting off their surfaces while they rotate. Some last briefly while other can last up to a minute, roughly. It could have been a large piece of space junk. I usually see satellites most nights here with shooting objects.

Hi,

I would definitely agree. I've seen just what you're describing, it took me quite a while to work out what I was seeing!!! :alien:

John

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billyharris72

billyharris72

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Well ... this is emabarrasing. The object I assumed was Mars was rising over the house in the South East at about that time, so I can only assume it was Arcturus. Teach me to observe without any charts! Strange how once you get an idea into your head you can just bend whatever you see to fit in with it. I did think that it looked stellar at the time.

Will give the Satellites plugin on Stellarium a go and see where I get to.

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Paul M

Paul M

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Unfortunately there is so much junk swarming round in Low Earth Orbit that it's getting impossible to look anywhere without some pesky intruder crossing your vision.

Since my recent revival of telescopic observations (after a longish break) I've been surprised by the number of times I've seen satellites in my telescopes field of view. I don't recall ever seeing that with Ye Olde Fullerscope back in the day.  

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baggywrinkle

baggywrinkle

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6 minutes ago, Paul M said:

Unfortunately there is so much junk swarming round in Low Earth Orbit that it's getting impossible to look anywhere without some pesky intruder crossing your vision.

Since my recent revival of telescopic observations (after a longish break) I've been surprised by the number of times I've seen satellites in my telescopes field of view. I don't recall ever seeing that with Ye Olde Fullerscope back in the day.  

As a lad I got very excited when I saw a satellite go overhead.....nowadays? Pfft!

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brrttpaul

brrttpaul

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I have to hold my hand up here, the other night while setting up ( I use BYN) i was looking at the laptop screen while aligning (find it much easier just seeing the star come into the cross hairs on a big screen), and this thing just drifted past on the screen, it was darkish and it looked rocky, but for the split second the child in me came out and i thought UFO lol , course i realise its a sat but that split second definatly brought out the imagination lol

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Dave In Vermont

Dave In Vermont

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Yes to Stellarium - it will help you rule out us Little Green Men:

http://www.stellarium.org/
 
As for instructions, the most current one's are posted in Wiki due to there being new features & functions being created almost daily. There is also a Pdf. that's almost up-to-date, absolutely enough 'up-to-date' in all needed ways. Here's the Wiki-Link:
 
http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Stellarium_User_Guide
 
And the Pdf. is here:
 
http://barry.sarcasmogerdes.com/stellarium/stellarium_user_guide-new.pdf

 

Enjoy!

Dave

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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In the early days of owning a scope i used to love when i saw a satellite cross my FOV. They are so common now (with observing experience) that i ignore them all apart from Iridium flares (which are always cool to see). I feel sorry for imagers because many a great image has been ruined by satellites passing by. Easily removed though in post processing.

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Aussie Dave

Aussie Dave

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I don't mind seeing satellites. Have tracked a couple with manual tracking visual, one came close to Jupiter and it's moons.

I was watching a program on TV a while back about space junk. They say up to 40,000 bits of debris including the larger dead satellites. It's getting that bad that eventually we will have problems with them colliding in to each other, if it hasn't happened already, and causing more debris or worse case hitting the working satellites that we all depend on for communication etc, knocking it out of it's orbit, returning to Earth or in to another satellites path. It's just a matter of time now. They were talking about sending an unmanned craft up there into orbit and shoot a corded harpoon like device in to the bigger pieces. What they didn't say was what they were going to do after that.

The last known satellite that came down around these parts was Skylab (the first US space station) that broke up and partially burnt  and landed in the Western Australian desert in 1979. There was a big race out there to get a piece of it. I went to see a large chunk of it in the Esperance Museum. The electronics in it was way cool. It looked like an old electronic D.Smith/Tandy project gone wrong. How things have changed.

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Aussie Dave

Aussie Dave

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2 hours ago, brrttpaul said:

I have to hold my hand up here, the other night while setting up ( I use BYN) i was looking at the laptop screen while aligning (find it much easier just seeing the star come into the cross hairs on a big screen), and this thing just drifted past on the screen, it was darkish and it looked rocky, but for the split second the child in me came out and i thought UFO lol , course i realise its a sat but that split second definatly brought out the imagination lol

It may well have been an asteroid brrttpaul, a good spot if it was, a shame you didn't capture it but at least you saw it.

Our biggest threat is an asteroid and it probably won't be any of the one's they know about, it'll be the one they don't.

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Aussie Dave

Aussie Dave

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Earth has already had major impacts from asteroids (possible a comet or 2) in our long distant past, there are many large craters around the world. It will happen again and again, maybe not in our lifetime but ya just never know.

Russia had one some years ago in which it broke up and exploded in the atmosphere. This is more than likely the link that Dave In Vermont is referring to. It was captured by many CCTV cameras and car dashboard cameras as they are quite popular over there for insurance purposes. The closest city got the shock wave some 6-7 minutes later from it exploding and it blew windows out and knocked people and objects over. Some thought it was a nuclear atomic strike. This isn't the first time it's happened in Eastern Europe either. The rock doesn't have to hit us.

Asteroids strikes aside, I take each day as it comes and am thankful I still wake up every morning :)

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