What WAS that near Canopus?

[LewisM]

Was packing up the gear at approx 0040, and chanced up at Canopus, to see a distinct glowing "puff" - like a cloud in a totally cloudless sky. It grew brighter, then started expanding. By about 0045 it had drifted slowly SE and had expanded considerably.

I managed to get the DSLR out in time, so will upload the shots later on. Just hoping someone else saw it.

Exploding meteorite? Space craft launch?

[Cimitar]

Hi mate, I saw it too! Same time (approx 12.40am) near Canopus.
Initially to the eye it looked like a dense Globular Cluster and my immediate thought was - that's not meant to be there!

No cloud in sight either, so I raced inside to find my DSLR. I've got photos with a 35mm lens and will share in the morning. I quickly reviewed the shots as they were coming in and the object has a distinct circular shape. It also moved relatively quickly as it tracked South East towards the horizon.

My preliminary guess is a space craft launch.

Cheers, Evan

[LewisM]

Yup, I was thinking "Huh, Omega Cent is not supposed to be there" :)

Was quite bright initially. Using averted vision later when it was more diffuse, it was still distinctly circular with a "puckered" centre

[LewisM]

One of - unfortunately - the better ones

[Lognic04]

:ship2::ship2::ship2:

[bojan]

Perhaps you two should compare photos and do some triangulation... to estimate the distance.


It doesn't look like something very far away.


BTW, I saw something intriguing back in January this year.. it looked very much like meteor, aiming directly at where I was (Ballarat - there was no noticeable drift), coming from the direction of South Cross. Flash duration was couple of seconnds (I think light curve was quite irregular, but it had definite maxima).

[Cimitar]

I've got more images which I'll post later today.
I might be able to stitch some together to make a GIF.

f/4.5, 34mm
15sec ISO-3200
Canon 600D
12.50am (20 Sept) looking SE.

[LewisM]

Yes that’s it. 100% not a cloud. It most assuredly had a punctum look with something in the middle which I am assuming was the rocket stage itself still glowing .

My handheld photos are crap unfortunately.

It was very obvious and initially quite bright - that is what caught my eye

[FlashDrive]

Worm Hole ...:P

[LewisM]

Intestinal worm holes

[strongmanmike]

Pretty cool guys, a rare lucky view :thumbsup:

Mike

[LewisM]

See, if you'd invite me to Wallaroo, I could show you stuff :lol:

Ok, that didn't sound kosher...

[billdan]

Looks like the Helix has moved closer to us.

[xelasnave]

Remember that odd image I had a while back that was probably dust and dew produced....it was just like this thing .. maybe it was not dust and dew on my lens afterall and I have simply photograph it at another part in the sky at an earlier stage��

Mine might only be dust and yours just a cloud...

What about an unusual first now discovered electrical activity?

Sprites were new.

Alex

[xelasnave]

Movement could indicate cloud and examination of records can show prevailing wind which would help support a cloud notion.
Then we need to determi man made or natural cloud.

Could be insects maybe.

Alex

[xelasnave]

At least triangulate it☺mmm I wonder two should give an exact position with the advantage of stars in the shots maybe...mmm time stamps may help..
Alex

[LewisM]

We already determined we saw it at the same time, same stellar area, same object, and separated by about 620 km between observers.

It was atmospheric at HIGH altitude. There is simply NO way that 2 observers could see a cloud (stratospheric) separated by 620km.

It was - IMHO - of either NASA/Space-EX/Ruscosmos or even military in origin. There are no publicly available details of ANY rocket launches until 21 September, so this makes it likely military, and given the approx position in the sky, likely a polar orbit.

[LewisM]

I saw your post before you deleted it Col - I reported it to CIA and MI5... :lol:

[DarkArts]

Thank you. Your report was received, but it was nothing. What you saw was swamp gas and a temperature inversion layer, nothing more. Now, please look into this light ...

[bojan]

If the distance between you two was 600km, this thing was VERY far away.. .. definitelly orbiting.
Perhaps it was a satellite destroyed by missile.. Chinese? USA? Russian? Or Space War already started between all three of those..


I tried to visually identify Canopus and surrounding stars on both images but couldn't. Will try plate solver later.

[LewisM]

The bright streaked one on mine is Canopus. Mine was ISO32000 or something to have a reasonable chance hand-held

[LewisM]

I’m near Russell orifices now - do you need a signed waiver? :lol:

[FlashDrive]

:rofl:

[AstralTraveller]

Everyone relax. Gandalf has been blowing smoke rings. :P

[bojan]

My good friend (from another forum) pointed out another possibility (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/04/21/centaur_rocket_fuel_dump_makes_for_ a_lovely_light_show.html?via=gdpr-consent).

[GrahamL]

Nothing seems to of gone up or come down from all the sites that report.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_station-keeping


Pretty cool to catch one isn't it ?

[Cimitar]

Okay, here's the platesolve for the object we saw early this morning :thumbsup:
The object is well below Canopus by this stage, however, as LewisM rightly pointed out the object first appeared close to Canopus.

I took this image at 12.47am on 20 Sept. View is towards SE.
Exposure details are:
Canon 600D
f/4.5, 34mm
ISO-6400, 20sec

I'm currently building a couple of GIF animations
Cheers, Evan

[LewisM]

Thanks Evan. Glad I was not the only one to see it.

[bojan]

OK...

So, knowing the distance between observers and image scale (should be known from plate solver) we can measure angular distance of object (~22° as per attachment) and calculate distance.


Very rough estimation is H=d/(2*tg(alpha)) = ~1540km.
The actual distance is smaller, as I did not take into account the height above horizon..... was it ~11°? or more?
Gunnedah is at 31°....

[Cimitar]

Here's my first GIF animation attempt (sorry, I really had to compress it to get the filesize below 200kB). :shrug:

The object was moving pretty quickly. There's 4 frames in this GIF, and I just checked time between first shot (12.47am) and last shot (12.49am) :eyepop:
My next GIF will be as it approaches the horizon.

[Cimitar]

Sorry, yes latitude for Gunnedah is 31° S, and the approx. height of the object when that platesolve image was captured was 13-14°.
Cheers, Evan

[Cimitar]

I can't get the filesize below 200kB for the second GIF, so I'm attaching the individual files. If anyone knows how to convert it so it still looks fine that would be fantastic! If you want the larger RAW files just let me know :thumbsup:

Time difference between first and last frame is 2mins :)

[Cimitar]

This is a stack animation of 11 images, crop/zoom to show only the object.
The donut shell appears to be expanding over several minutes.

1st frame was taken at 12.47am, and the last frame was captured at 12.51am

[DarkArts]

What input format did you use? GIFs are typically created from JPG or PNG so you could compress the input images before making the GIF, with some loss of detail. Compressing when making the GIF wouldn't achieve much unless you used uncompressed bitmaps as input.

But ...

If you're logged in, open the first image and, at the RHS top of the screen is a navigation panel; cycle through the images once then just click the right arrow quickly and you get the same effect as a GIF.

If you're logged out, click the first image and cycle through the images slowly clicking 'next'. Once you've gone through once, click 'next' fast for the GIF effect.

[bojan]

Hmm ..

Because object is moving pretty fast, to calculate the distance based on triangulation from Lewis's and your image will be much harder.
However, we can assume the object is in (circular) orbit... so that alone can enough.

[RyanJones]

Really cool capture guys.

I recently posted a question asking what people had seen. I was photographing lagoon nebula and while going through my subs I noticed a small disc / black dot go across my frames, change direction, go around the nebula then continue in a statight line again. Total time to cross the image was nearly 8 min. I'm using an f10 5" SCT so it's quite a small feild of view. In my mind, taking that long to travel across the feild confused me and I thought ruled out anything terrestrial but the change of direction is what really got me thinking...... Nobody has given me any real thoughts on what it might be short of a very tiny bug on my sensor, but again.... 8 mins ????

[Nikolas]

Seen something like that before it's definitely a rocket stage from some launch.

[VPAstro]

There was a launch yesterday "Long March 3b/yz | BelDou-3 M13 & M14" from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, China at 12.07am EST 20/09/2018.
I suspect it may have been from that maybe. That was the only launch around that time..
Thanks
Andrew...

[N1]

Thanks Lewis, Evan et al for this thread. I haven't had the privilege to see something like that yet, must be an interesting sight :thumbsup:

[Cimitar]

I was just looking at this during my lunch break. I couldn't easily locate a flight path, however, I think you may have found our missing spacecraft :thumbsup:

[silv]

Fascinating observation and photo documents.

Cool, Andrew, great details. Here's even an English source about that launch https://www.untvweb.com/news/china-launches-twin-beidou-3-satellites/

And this one explains the booster 3 stages of the rocket https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/beidou-3m5-and-3m6-launched-by-long-march-3b/
"The first two stages, as well as the four strap-on boosters, use hypergolic (N2O4/UDMH) propellant while the third stage uses cryogenic (LOX/LH2) propellant."
On the side: that the circle stayed in shape over the whole time you saw it means that no debris accompanied the "explosion" which could have deformed the exhaust cloud at the very beginning?


Do you remember this one from Oct 2017 in Russia? In the spaceweather.com article there's a link to the photographer's VK-page, the Russian Facebook. Beautiful captures of the blast, with an aurora, too. http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=10&year=2017
You can click through the whole sequence.
https://vk.com/alex_626?z=photo230626868_456239606 %2Fphotos230626868

[Ant0nio]

Hi Lewis,
I saw this as well from regional Qld but was reluctant to post my experience without photographical evidence in case people thought I was :screwy:.
I can however offer a detailed description of what I saw visually. I had just returned my scope to the home position & about to pack up when I noticed the object below & to the right of Canopus, I noted the time was 12:42. It was easy to slew my 127ED with the 24mm 82deg eyepiece still in it & still focused across to the object & track it using the hand control. I was afforded a very decent view & maintained very good visual contact with the object as it moved towards the horizon in the SE. At the centre of the luminous glow there was a pinpoint sharp object similar to how a satellite would look as it passes through your FOV , but this was brighter & distinctly red in colour. As I continued to follow it a satellite did indeed pass through my FOV on a path at right angles to the object for a convenient comparison, this highlighted the fact it was moving much faster & was larger & brighter than the satellite. The glow around the object I could only describe as nebulous & the whole image remained consistent until it disappeared from view. I must admit I felt a bit of a chill down my spine at the time after witnessing such a phenomenon. Do we have reasonable explanation for it yet? BTW I'm expecting a visit from the MIB:)
Clear skies,
Tony