Astronomy question - What did we see?

[trickybilly]

Looking at the clear sky through my finderscope I have seen something like a faint star (faint compared to other stars visible through my finderscope) but it was moving very fast. It did not blink like an airplane, (I have seen several airplanes at night, btw. they are flying that low that you can make it out the wings, etc. clearly) and it could not be seen by the naked eye (my eyesight is ok and seeing conditions were good, I could see 6-7 stars @ Pleiades). It was moving that fast that I had to move the finderscope pretty fast (I have already tracked planes successfully at night, but this was faster). Bottom line: it was not visible by the naked eye and it made no sound.

I had a 10 mm eyepiece in my 8 inch 200/1200 Skywatcher Flextube. My mother was there so she was looking through the eyepiece while I was tracking the object with the finderscope (putting the crosshair before it) . I think the focus was ok when she looked, and she said it was like a star moving through the field of view in less than a second at several occasions. When I wanted to take a look too I have lost track of the object.

What did we see most likely? A meteor? A comet? Some kind of special aircraft?

Best wishes, trickybilly

[OzStarGazer]

Maybe a satellite? I have seen a few in the sky and can see even more in Starry Night Pro. If you tell me location, time and which cardinal point you were facing I can check in Starry Night.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Almost certainly a satellite. Meteors travel so fast you wouldn't have a chance of tracking it. Comets on the other hand move very slowly. In this case case a slow refer to apparent motion btw, meteors appear fast because they are very close in the upper atmosphere while comets are many millions or billions of kms away in other areas of the solar system.
Once you have done a bit of observing you find yourself just ignoring all the satellites passing through the field of view, it happens so often.

Malcolm

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Low Earth orbit satellites, including the ISS, move at a fantastic speed. I've also seen these buggers cross the FOV, & being so low, through a scope it is actually possible to make out details: solar panels, body structure, and antennae. Might seem unlikely that you could make out such detail, but our scopes and eyepieces are actually very fine instruments. Think of the detail you can pull out of the planets at high magnification, and they are so bloody small!

My first experience with a low orbit satellite was while sketching the near full Moon a few years back. One of these suckers crossed right in front of the Moon. For just the couple of seconds the satellite was visible, I was able to make out the solsr panels, body, several antennae & even its coppery colour. Surprised me at first, the line of sight coincidence, but I realized what was going on. Heck of a thrill too!

Doesn't happen often. My first such experience with low orbit satellites was like I said 3, 4 years ago after being into astro some 30 years. And this has happened twice more since then, again while sketching. High orbit satellites are noticed a lot more frequently, and detail on these is impossible to make out. Their angular velocity (rate of movement through the EP FOV) is much slower so they are visible for longer and so more frequently seen.

Sorry fellows, nothing mystical, sinister or military going on here.

Tricky, you did bloody well to be able to track that thing for so long!

Mental.

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

More likely just simple SPACE JUNK, spent rocket stages, assembly panels & spinning metal. There are thousand of bits spinning around earth reflecting the sun off them. I see heap of them every night I'm out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris