Orion Asteroid

[James4]

It was first light for new Atro-Tech 8" imaging Newtonian on New Year's Eve. I wanted to capture a dozen frames of a few different targets to see what imaging times were like. When I checked my frames of M42 I had an Asteroid passing right through it. Strangely this is not the first time I've had this - actually its the third. Must be busy out in space. This is an animated gif (see the post farther down).

[James4]

Oh Oh, for some reson my animated gif does not want to animate in the post! Does anyone know how to enable it in the post? Otherwise its just a bad picture of Orion. Thanks, James

[FraserClarke]

How long is the sub?

I'd say that looks a bit too quick (judging from the length of the trail) to be an asteroid (unless it's really a near earth asteroid). It's maybe more likely to be a geostationary satellite -- they are mostly in equatorial orbits, so when you look at Orion you're looking right at the main geostationary satellite belt.

Fun image still

[James4]

Yes that makes sense. The sub is one minute and I had the object progress through 10 frames (12 sec gap between them). I assumed satellites would appear much brighter, so always thought these objects were Asteroids ... But yes, thinking about it, Asteroids would be much farther away and move very slowly. I'll post a link to the animated gif shortly. James

[James4]

Here is the link - hope it works:

[ollypenrice]

Yup, I got one that took about 30 minutes to cross this field the other night. I was doing 10 min subs.

Olly

[SlipperySquid]

Now go post that immediately on a UFO site......and before you know it you'll have a few quid from all the UFO programs wanting to use it as concrete evidence of alien life forms!

Using such quotes as "Experts can confirm it's authenticity" but leaving out the part where the experts also say it's a satellite It does look good though!

[James4]

Just heard here in Canada, a 10 year old girl discovered a Supernova

Royal Astronomical Society of Canada - eNews | Announcements

The same night I was doing this! Mmm, where did I go wrong ... :-)