Unknown pinpoint flare in sky on 8th October

[glyderman]

Hi All,

I use Thomas Jacquin's Allsky software along with a Raspberrypi HQ camera  doing 20 second exposures overnight all on a raspberrypi V3b. I live in south east of the UK near south coast.

This about a observation I made the other night and I would like to know if anyone else recorded it.  I had my allsky cam running for the Draconids meteor shower on 10th October.  I caught a few trails across the sky, and a couple were very long and vivid. Very pleasing to get a few  good shots finally after using my allsky for 2 years now, when weather permits.   I don't rely on the Allsky software to do the star startails and video of the night, I find I have better results with the program 'Startrails'.   I always do a star trails image first then do a 3 frame per second video to watch after.

When the star trails had completed I notice one very bright  'star' was stationary in the star trail image. I had never had a hot pixel in that area before.  so I watched the nights video carefully to see what it was.  At precisely 21:39:12 on 8th October there was a flare pinpint of light that was brighter than any other star in the sky. My first thought was dying star, my second thought was don't be stupid, they can last for  centuries, not  just a few seconds.  So all i could think of was a metor heading directly toward the cmaera as it entered the atmosphere, so it did not leave a trail for me to see. Then this morning I heard on the new about the star explosion GRB 221009A recorded on the 9th October and it has made me wonder.  From the reports I have read, it was recorded on the Sagitta constellation.  The flash I recorded was roughly in the direction of Camelopardals.  It was in only 1 frame so it lasts less than 20 seconds. I positioned the camera in same place I alway do and have never seen any artifact like that occur before from any nearby light so I believe it was a flash in the sky not relfection or anything on the dome. I really don't believe I could be lucky enough to capture a dying star, I really believe it was just a meteor coming in a trajectory straight at the camera, although the odds of that happening must be huge.  Does anyone else know about this flash of light or have they recorded it?  I have attached a star trails for that night with annotaion of the flare, Ignore red light around the garden i was me just checking my telescope earlier using my red head light. I had actually left the garden my 9pm so the recorded flash was not anything from me reflecting on the dome. I also attached a 9 second video clip shoing the flash at 21.39.12. The date/time is in top left hand corner. 

I hope I am not making a fool of myself with this post, but it was so unusual to see that type of very bright pinpoint of light flash, I have been using my allsky for 2 years and never seen it happen before. Your thoughts are welcome.

sky flash 21.39.12.avi

[glyderman]

sorry I wrote 10th October in the text it should have been 8th October.

[glyderman]

Have decided this was definately a straight on meteor so topic can be closed.

[tooth_dr]

13 minutes ago, glyderman said:

Have decided this was definately a straight on meteor so topic can be closed.

Was going to reply, I don’t think you would detect the light from the other object. 

[Malpi12]

On 16/10/2022 at 00:24, glyderman said:

I really don't believe I could be lucky enough to capture a dying star

I remember some time ago reading discussions about the possibility of seeing (visible spectrum !) a GRB with amateur equipment, I thought that I remembered magnitude 9 as being a reasonable estimate, so I googled to refresh my brain-cell  and was astonished to find this :--

GRB 080319B was a gamma-ray burst .... 06:12 UTC on March 19, 2008. ....a peak visual apparent magnitude of 5.7 and remained visible to human eyes for approximately 30 second....
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080319B

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Malpi12

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

I'm probably way off, but a few hours after your observation, at approx. 0430 on the 9th I saw a *very* bright flare. I traced it to a Russian 'Monitor' satellite launched in 2003.

Maybe your 'flash' was a sateliite? Have you checked Orbittrack for candidates?

[Epick Crom]

There was a GRB on October the 9th, maybe this was what you saw?!

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/brightest-gamma-ray-burst-yet-lit-up-the-sky/

[Leo S]

On 17/10/2022 at 12:47, glyderman said:

Have decided this was definately a straight on meteor so topic can be closed.

Unfortunately, it's much more likely to be a glint from a satellite/junk in orbit. These glints are very common, and becoming more so as LEO gets ever more cluttered. My cameras catch them every night that it's reasonably clear. Here are some examples.

Point meteors on the other hand are relatively rare, and usually only observed during very strong outbursts or storms, although of course there are bound to be random occurrences from time to time. My cameras have picked up some near point meteors in the past, but not very often, and certainly no where near the frequency they pick up glints from satellites.