Weather balloon

[mwayne]

I guess this qualifies as a special event, when I was a kid they used to send up several every year but it has been several years since I saw one. The jet stream was decisively out the the North so this thing must have been much higher because it was moving randomly, like a piece of driftwood in the eddy current of a slow moving stream. However the gondola, which can barely be seen, was bobbing around wildly like if someone was using it to tease a kitten. Used the ASI120MC at prime focus (1000 mm) and it was difficult to get frames because of its random movement. This is the outfit that I believe launched it from Palestine TX:

https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/

[CraigT82]

Interesting! How did you know it was there? Did you chance upon it in the eyepiece? 

[mwayne]

8 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Interesting! How did you know it was there? Did you chance upon it in the eyepiece? 

First saw it in broad daylight through some cirrus and for a second thought we had a brand new supernovae! Not until I used binoculars did I realize what it was.