What did I capture???

[Alex_e]

Hello! I'm doing astrophotography just since a few months. My equipment is a Celestron 9.25 SCT, with an f/6.3 reducer, a Nikon DSLR camera and an intervalometer. Yesterday night I made a series of 90-second photos of IC2944 (the Running Chicken Nebula). The brightest star there is Lambda Centauri. When I reviewed the photos a few hours ago, I noticed in one of them a very strange image, immediately to the left of the star. I wonder if someone can tell me what is that. I'm attaching two consecutive pictures, one "normal" and the other showing the image. They are unedited, I only converted the photos from NEF to JPG. Thanks.

[Epick Crom]

Hi Alex and welcome to Stargazers Lounge! I observe from the Southern Hemisphere like you but have zero experience with Astrophotography, I'm purely a visual observer. I know the region around Lambda Centauri well from my observations there, my best guess is that it's a satellite? Strange shape though! I'm sure someone with knowledge of Astrophotography will give you a better answer ☺️. Cheers

[Alex_e]

Hi, thank you for the welcome! Actually I joined Stargazers Lounge because I was very surprised when I found this shape in a photo, and thought that someone could have an explanation. I also think that it's a satellite, but not sure. The shape appeared in just one photo of a series taken every 90 seconds.

By the way, I read your great description of Eta Carinae area, I'm also discovering this wonderful region and (in my case) making some photos. Should I join another group to talk about imaging? I'm not sure if this forum "Observing - Reports" is just for visual. Cheers!!

[Epick Crom]

Hi again Alex. I joined here two months ago still a bit new as well, you might be right maybe you will get good answers in imaging section. The Eta Carina region is amazing, you will get great photo opportunities there! Good luck in finding out what that was, Im sure it was a passing satellite as I see several passing by through my telescope almost every observing session. Cheers

[wxsatuser]

it's not a satellite.

imo the scope moved at the very beginning of that sub,

the bright star was registered then the scope moved for some reason, wobbled may be.

[CraigT82]

Yup all the stars in the affected image have a funny shape and the brightest all have a swirly trail. Scope wasn't settled at start of sub or was knocked at some point during the sub.

[Waddensky]

If you zoom in, you'll notice that the streak ends (or starts) at the bright star. So I agree with the last two posters, it's most likely a trail caused by movement of the scope.

[Alex_e]

Thank you all!! I agree that it's most likely a movement of the scope. Good to know!