Fast White Light went past M37

[Aussie]

Hey guys, I've recently bought my first telescope and was observing M37 which is one of the first open cluster that was easy to find for me.

Anyway while I was observing at about 9pm GMT I seen a white object moving incredibly fast to the west in a fairly horizontal line. It was not a plane as the distance was too great.

Could this have been a comet? It wasnt big or anything and only seemed to be the same size as the most faint visible stars to me but I definetly seen a white object moving fast. I tried to follow it but as I dont have much experience with equatorial mounts I lost it.

Any ideas as to what it was?

[Ludd]

Most likely a satellite - there are thousands of them up there and if you are looking at something through a scope, a satellite will whizz past sooner or later, sometimes making you jump out of your skin.

[FraserClarke]

most likely a satellite...

[kidlands]

I would say satellite. I spot them all the time with my bins crossing my field of view.

[Aussie]

Ohhh I should have thought of that. Thats somthing i'll have to get use too I guess. Still exciting to see it though. Thanks for the replys and clearing it up but couldnt one of you have said aliens? lol.

[FraserClarke]

couldnt one of you have said aliens? lol.

heh - no-one said it was human-made satellite....

[SteveL]

...but couldnt one of you have said aliens? lol.

<sarcasm>

Maybe we said its a satellite to cover up the fact that we are all aliens, and you are one of the last few humans on this puny planet that we need to collect, harvest, and replace with one of our suitably modified worker clones.

All hail our glorious leader!

</sarcasm>

[Rols]

i was going to suggest a firefly!! but hey alien works for me!

[Danz0o]

Saw the same thing through my telescope a while ago, i looked on stellarium and turns out it was the international space station.

[BazMark]

Could this have been a comet?

Comets actually don't appear to move as they are so far away. Many appear as a faint star that you can't focus on and move position slightly each night.

Satellites on the other hand are relatively very close so they appear to move quite rapidly. I've seen many drift accross the field of view (FOV) in my scope that I can't even see with my naked eye, they're just too faint. However, If you happen to see one with your naked eye as bright as Jupiter is right now, it'll be the International Space Station (ISS). That moves even faster than most satellites and is quite impressive.

[pvaz]

Stellarium haves a satellite plugin. If you record the exact time and place you can likely find it's name using stellarium.

[glowjet]

Have a look at the program "Heavens Above" covers a lot of satellites and their movements, you could check to see if what you observed was listed.