Satellite central

[RickS]

54 subs on NCG2170 and only 5 of them were clear of satellite trails. Most of them had at least half a dozen. Attached pic is the rejection map :eyepop:

[rustigsmed]

Hahaha that is unlucky! Perhaps a different part of the sky is in order!
It resembles the rings of Saturn!

[topheart]

Great capture!!

What a problem to have.

Very interesting observation!!

Thanks,
Tim

[RickS]

The bulk of the trails are clustered around and parallel to dec -5 30.

The poor rejection algorithm just couldn't deal with the mass of overlapping trails. I managed to clean up the data using PixelMath. I drew lines that covered the trails with a value that rejects out easily (the maximum pixel value). It was a lot of work!

Cheers,
Rick.

[strongmanmike]

Geez how long were your subs.?? Using 10 - 15min subs I generally only have issues with satellites for the first hour or so after astronomical twilight and the last hour or so before...?

Cool composite though :thumbsup:

Mike

[RickS]

Subs were 10 mins for RGB and 15 mins for Lum, Mike. I've never seen anything like this before. I'll have to do a little research on satellite orbits...

[Atmos]

That is nearly incomprehensible in number! I would be more inclined to say that they're really from an alien station and moving in perfectly straight lines across the sky. The mass lines being from consistent return fire from SHIELD :P

[omegacrux]

Wow , that would be a pain in the date

David

[Slawomir]

This is amazing! You must have zoomed into a "satellite highway" LOL

BTW: Why do we need so much junk in space? :question:

[lazjen]

I can't believe how many there are. That's just insane! :)

[E_ri_k]

WOW, that's ridiculous haha! I bet you were annoyed, none the less, it's a pretty cool picture. Surly it's not that congested all the time? You'll have to work out when it's not rush hour!

Erik

[Geoff45]

Amazing, annoying, funny.

[RickS]

So, I did a little research on a satellite tracking web site.

It looks like imaging NGC2170 from a site in Australia wouldn't present any problems. From Brisbane, all of the geostationary satellites have declinations around +4 to +6 degrees.

However, from New Mexico where the scope was located, they are all around -4 to -6 degrees and when you look at how many are floating around out there the result is not surprising!

Cheers,
Rick.

[el_draco]

Not satellites at all.... Obvious example of plasma canon fire and photon torpedo trails.... I bet the imperial star fleet was just out of frame... better luck next time :P

[RickS]

:lol: speaking of which, the Norse IPViking site is quite fascinating to watch. It's a real time view of cyber attacks detected by their honeypots.

http://hp.ipviking.com/

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb]

You must be under a vogon flight path. :)

[RickS]

Just so long as they don't stop for poetry readings :D

[gregbradley]

Wow.

Some objects seem to be near Satellite routes. M42 seems to be one of them.

Greg.

[ZeroID]

Jetsons .... you hit a main hiway ....

[Placidus]

Wow! Will be very interesting to see how your artifact rejection software handles it, and whether the "saturn" section comes out ok on the final image.

[RickS]

It cleaned up nicely, Mike, but I had to give it some help. I drew white lines (max data value) over the top of all the trails in each sub with PixelMath. Once that is done they stack perfectly. A bit painful, though...

Cheers,
Rick.

[RobF]

Wow, that's amazing. Hope they don't get in the way too often or pre-processing will be fun....

[RickS]

Nope, cleaned up beautifully, Rob :thumbsup:

[gvanhau]

That is really bad luck Rick.

Two weeks ago, I tougth I was also having a problems with statelite or airplanes when shooting The HH, but then realized that the "trails" were difraction spikes of alnikak just outside of the frame :lol::lol::lol:

Geert

[RickS]

I should be grateful I didn't have that problem as well, Geert :D

[Regulus]

That's amazing.

that's what? 9+ hours of exposure, over more than one day? I guess that's probably a lot of the same ones coming through each evening.
It looks like you need to start later at night to try and avoid this nuisance factor, which is only going to get worse sadly.
Wonder if anyone else here has similar photos and just haven't bothered to post.
Certainly you don't notice many naked eye because they are so small. But point a telescope at the right patch of sky after sunset and it is amazing how many cross the field. I find the Southern Cross/Eta Carina area at certain times of the year to be one such place.
But thanks for sharing this Rick. It's really enlightening.
Trev

[RickS]

Hi Trev,

ny2o.com is currently tracking 17561 objects and a lot of them are geostationary satellites, so I guess the surprising thing is that we don't see more of them in our subs :) You need to be imaging around Dec +4 to +6 to see them from here.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Regulus]

Had an acquaintance who used to say he watched the Geo-stationaries naked eye some nights. yeah, right? He wasn't at all into astro things, so had no idea where to look, just used to be able to spot them.
Chuckle.

Trev

[GrahamDuncan]

l don't think the thick bands are satellites,too
many of them,also some trails split of making
V shapes,must be another reason behind these lines.

[RickS]

This represents the trails through 12 hours of data in a very busy part of the sky so I don't think another explanation is needed. The "V" trails don't appear in individual subs. They are a superposition of trails from separate subs.

Cheers,
Rick.

[SamD]

Yes, it's pretty busy in the geostationary zone. Here's a recent M61 rejection map showing 4 or so satellites (over 1.5 hrs), at about +4.6 declination and about due north.

In fact, looking carefully at the rejection map I also found 3 faint asteroid tracks !

Interesting stuff even in the data we normally throw away !

[Atmos]

I never would have thought of looking at rejection maps for asteroids, rarely pay much attention to them other than to quickly check how much stuff has been rejected.

[RickS]

That's very cool, Sam!