Satalite? or what ?

[DaveS]

I'll try posting this, and hope the date and time come up in the exif

(click to enlarge)

here goes. If this has posted, does anyone have any idea what it could be? the exposure was 0.8 sec, so it was moving fast

Dave

[DaveS]

The "object" is the 4 pairs of bright dots running east-west from M42

[barkis]

It has to be an aircraft of some sort. Two white lights that blinked 4 times, and one that remained lit during your exposure.

I am surprised you got that many stars out of an exposure of 0.8secs

Ron.

[astro_dt]

I get loads of aircraft on my widefields...joys of living under the Heathrow flight path!

That definitely looks like a plane you can see where the body reflected light.

Either it was moving very fast or the exposure was longer than 0.8secs....Don't mean to be critical but I suspect the latter because the amount the light pollution and stars look more like 8 secs.

Still a nice image!

Cheers

Danny

[DaveS]

D'oh! You're right, just checked the exif, 6 sec f/4 iso 800 date 18/1/09 time 19.57.00

Got it confused in my mind with another set taken at f/2.0, where the exposure was of the order of 0.8 sec.

Teach me to get my facts right before posting, so aircraft it is, and I live in Acton, right under the blessed flight-path :x

Dave

PS looking at the LP and the time, the axis would be at about 45 deg, so the aircraft was moving slantwise across the sky

[astro_dt]

Phew! Glad we cleared up before the UFO brigade started investigating

(well known fact that UFOs have navigation lights)

Cheers

Danny