someting strange by the north america nebula

[ultranova]

 

Hi Guy's I was out Sunday night and I got something on my subs

that I can not explain, the picture wee taken with a Atik 383l

with a 60mm lens on the front of it with a 7nm ha filter

the unexplained object also appears in O3 as well but not quite

as bright, 7 minute subs  

the object is at the bottom of NGC 7000 , ( north America nebula)

I used the blink comparator on PI that's when I first noticed it.

strange.wmvstrange.wmv

 

 

[Paul M]

My guess is that it's a stratospheric cloud/trail of propellant from a rocket launch or some such activity.

Perhaps even a segment of very long persistence meteor trail.

Perhaps it's a dense trail of hydrazine from a manoeuvring satellite?

It does seem to be retaining it's form very well though and if it's shining by reflected sunlight it would have had to have been not too long after sunset.

It seem to move across the frame in exactly the opposite direction to the drifting stars and at the same rate. Maybe something in the optical train?

Right, someone else can have a go

[matt-c]

Not to deviate but I'm really impressed at your stars for a 60mm that's very undersampled, did you drizzle?

[ultranova]

23 hours ago, Paul M said:

My guess is that it's a stratospheric cloud/trail of propellant from a rocket launch or some such activity.

Perhaps even a segment of very long persistence meteor trail.

Perhaps it's a dense trail of hydrazine from a manoeuvring satellite?

It does seem to be retaining it's form very well though and if it's shining by reflected sunlight it would have had to have been not too long after sunset.

It seem to move across the frame in exactly the opposite direction to the drifting stars and at the same rate. Maybe something in the optical train?

Right, someone else can have a go

Hi Paul thanks for the response, Initially I thought damn there's something on my the front face of my ccd, literally

laying on the chip, but I could see it moving past dead pixels on the chip, and they are fixed, if you know what I mean

and it appears to be self illuminating, also it appears brighter in the HA wavelength than O3, given the same

exposure lengths.

You did come up with some plausible answers, food for thought

the images were taken between 5 and 8 pm on sunday night

Paul  

  

[ultranova]

23 hours ago, matt-c said:

Not to deviate but I'm really impressed at your stars for a 60mm that's very undersampled, did you drizzle?

No drizzling, but I had accidently moved my mount out of polar alignment

which shows on the play back of the video,

The hardest challenge was getting a Atik 383l with Canon lens to work at

all with a HA filter, There physically is not enough room to get a filter wheel

between the camera and lens so I had to improvise    

Paul

 

 

[Paul M]

1 hour ago, ultranova said:

 

the images were taken between 5 and 8 pm on sunday night

Paul  

  

I didn't consider the large spread of exposure times. That rules out physical phenomena in the stratosphere or Low Earth Orbit.

I'm directed more towards an optical effect or blemish in the optical train.

Time for the Brillo pad and Vim?

[Ben the Ignorant]

I already saw that kind of thing a couple years ago. One night I was helping a club member take some pictures, so I got to choose a target. It was an open cluster, I don't remember which one. But close to center there was a roundish glow that looked rather material because it seemed densely illuminated, opaque. On the other hand it was not perfectly round, so it might have been a flare.

We dubbed it the Space Gun or the Mothership for couple days, while we discussed it, and polled other astrophotographers about it. It turned out another guy in the club had had the same effect on a pic with a brightish star not far from the center. It was a flare from a filter, but sometimes it is caused by the interplay between an adaptive optic and a filter, if my memory is correct. Sorry, I don't know better, I'm not an imager, only a witness of the weird effect.

After taking the same pic with a slight change in aim, only a few arcminutes, the strange flare disappeared.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I agree with Ben, some kind of internal reflection off Deneb is likely, it really is very bright.

[ultranova]

15 hours ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

I already saw that kind of thing a couple years ago. One night I was helping a club member take some pictures, so I got to choose a target. It was an open cluster, I don't remember which one. But close to center there was a roundish glow that looked rather material because it seemed densely illuminated, opaque. On the other hand it was not perfectly round, so it might have been a flare.

We dubbed it the Space Gun or the Mothership for couple days, while we discussed it, and polled other astrophotographers about it. It turned out another guy in the club had had the same effect on a pic with a brightish star not far from the center. It was a flare from a filter, but sometimes it is caused by the interplay between an adaptive optic and a filter, if my memory is correct. Sorry, I don't know better, I'm not an imager, only a witness of the weird effect.

After taking the same pic with a slight change in aim, only a few arcminutes, the strange flare disappeared.

Hi Ben , that does sound like the most logical conclusion, and being a new set up I

am experimenting with, it probably is some kind of optical phenomena.

Thanks for your input Guys,

Paul

[Ben the Ignorant]

I asked my friend to send me the pic with the Cosmic Laser or whatever we called it, if he still has it, but no answer yet. I'll post it here when I get it.