Asteroid transits Moon

[Uchtungbaby]

I caught an object transiting the moon at approximately 6.30-6.50pm Australian time. A photo is attached. You will notice a black dot near the centre of the moon. I believe it may be an asteroid which transited between the Earth and the Moon. There is also a little filament in the top right of the image forming a spectre on the lens.

But the little black dot is real. So there you go. Some people wait their entire life for such an event...a planet killer.

Don't be surprised if someone picks it up again in Pisces.:)


http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/6058/moonwithdotaep8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[matt]

I would have thought an asteroid passing between the earth and the moon would have been well predicted and reported?

Unless I've missed the report in the news? But I doubt it.

[Astroman]

be more like a satellite than an asteroid. I have seen many different things passing in front of the moon whilst imaging or looking through the scope. But in my honest opinion it would most likely be a satellite or high altitude bird.

[jjjnettie]

I agree with the others, it's probably a satellite.
But well done!:thumbsup:
It's no mean feat to be at the right place at the right time.

I'd love to capture something, anything transiting the moon.
Last night I saw a plane pass half way over the moon and kicked myself for not carrying my camera around with me ALL THE TIME.

[Blue Skies]

A satellite - I've seen one on video. We like to use a video eyepiece for club events here on our regular lunatiks nights and I've seen a satellite go by via the video and so has a another member. They're pretty quick. Apparently there is a site where you can get some software that tells you when to expect such a sighting (not heavens-above) but I'm not sure what it is.

[Marko of Oz]

could have been Nicole Kidman on her broom.

[tjquoll]

I was out having a walk this evening and saw two very bright objects below the moon at 6:44pm. My initial thought was "I never notice those stars". Then they faded out. I've never seen two satellite that close together at the same time and a quick glance at "heavens above" suggested that there was both an Iridum and a discarded booster in that general area at that time. Now, by an intricate process involving calculating the difference in our latitudes, drawing a dodgy back of an envelope sketch and a drinking few too many scotches, I have concluded that you may have, very likely, possibly, perhaps, photographed one of these ;).

[Uchtungbaby]

I've pasted another picture showing the direction of light in relation to the object. I determined the direction of sunlight by observing the shadow shape on the major crater to the far left in the image.

The object appears to transit between Mare Nectaris and Mare Tranquilitatis as seen from my vantage point in Tasmania.

The object exhibits no phase, so we may say that it is within the cone of shadow produced by the Earth. It is passing within the dimensions of of the Earth as measured along the equator.

Size is difficult to determine because the image contains no near Earth depth que with which to estimate the size of the object.

During observation it did not blink like a satellite would blink vis a vis no headlights. So let us assume for now that it is not a satellite.

A hunch tells me that the asteroid will reappear once more in the constellation of pisces. In Pisces it will light up on reflection from the sun. I don't know why I think that this is the place to look. It is only a hunch.:P

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/5646/moonwithdot1avw8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Astroman]

Not all satellites blink, some remain quite constant in brightness except for the beginning and end of light transit. Obviously the object didn't remain over the disk of the moon for very long, otherwise you would have taken more images of it. Honestly mate, I think it is a satellite or spent space jumk, if you can make a definite second or third observation then report it, but you will have to be dead sure it was the same object, and I doubt that will happen.

[bojan]

Judging by the size of the image, this must have been either very big or very close to us. I do not think the object you caught on the image is the shadow of something... If it were a shadow, the size of the object creating it must have roughly the same size, that means it would have been hundreds of kilometers in diameter, something that is VERY hard not to pick up earlier.
It may have been meteorological balloon.... They are round like this thing, possibly elongated and the time of the day could be right (in Europe, they are launched around sunset and dawn, and then midnight and noon, I am not sure about here). You caught the silhouette of this on your photo....

Edit: It could have been just an ordiray balloon as well :-)

[Uchtungbaby]

Yeah well, it shouldn't be too difficult to plot its' path. There is enough information in the photo and the celestial almanac to work out its' relative position in the solar system in relation to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

I think if I have enough time this year I might look at determining the angle at which the sun is casting its' rays on the lunar surface. That will provide me with a line of direction between the Sun and the Moon. Then it is a simple matter of using the position of the Earth to bisect the line of direction between the Sun and the Moon. The bisected line will be a reasonably precise approximation of the direction in which the object is heading.

I'm only going to use very simple math to establish the direction the object is taking on its' journey through the solar system.

But of course that is all I shall I need.:)

[loomberah]

Did you actually see something moving across the face of the Moon, or only discover the mark when you looked at the photo? Do you have more than one photo showing it?

It is too large to be most satellites, maybe apart from ISS, but it doesn't look like that.

It looks exactly like a dust spot on a digital camera detector to me, I've had plenty of them over the years.

Gordon

[Uchtungbaby]

No, it's not a mirror spectre. I hosed off the mirror with the garden hose before I began.:)

It will have to be tracked. No one believes me so I shall have to do it myself.

I'll post a 3 step methodology which I will use to attempt to locate the object in space in a second.

[RB]

That's exactly what it looks like, a dust particle on the sensor.
You'll notice another "hair like" one in the upper right limb too.
Some keen amateurs use this same basic maths to work out how big the sensor dust actually is relative to their sensor.

[loomberah]

Dust spots on the mirror have no effect on an image other than a slight scattering of light, they do not show as dark spots on the photo.
Dust spots on the CCD or CMOS (or film) will show as a dark spot on the final photo.
What camera, telescope, etc equipment did you use for the photo?

[Uchtungbaby]

Well, it could be anything. But I am treating it as a space object. It presents me with an issue which I have not had to deal with when it comes to my basic knowledge of astronomy.

I'm going to see if I can track it. I'm going to go through the steps I would logically use to find the object in space. I am going to try and do it without referring to an astronomy book for reference. I am allowing myself the treat of being able to refer to math books.

I have devised a 3 step method for my own purposes which should allow me to identify the direction(s) in which the object would be tracking. A graphic appears below which details the basics of what I will have to do.

Step one is to identify a line of angle between the sun and the moon. To do this I will find the angle of a shadow in the large crater that appears in the photo with the object. It is the prominent crater which I shall have to identify. The shadow forms a triangle, the angles of which, can be deduced through simple Pythagorean style math and a trignometry table(?). Step 2 involves bisecting the line created between the sun and the moon in step 1. The bisected line will indicate the direction that the object takes. Coincidentally, it also indicates the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun on one vector. Step 3 involves working out the possible range of eliptical orbits that the object will take. We have as a foci on one point the Sun and it remains to see what the second foci will be. I dare say that a guess would suggest that the second foci incorporates the Earth, but I am not certain as yet.:)

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7219/asteroidplottervk5.gif (http://imageshack.us)

[middy]

Whereabouts in Tasmania were you observing from. There were several satellites passing near to the moon on that evening around that time according to the Heavens-Above website.

[Kal]

You contradict yourself here. How can a satellite 'blink' if it is within the cone of earths shadow? The satellite would appear as a black dot against a bright background - exactly like what you captured.

I would say it is a satellite. If it was an asteroid it would have to be so large that astronomers would have probably detected it a couple of centuries ago! :P

[Uchtungbaby]

Well, what can I say? Each view has a converse view which is of equal, greater or lesser weight.

A view that a satellite does not blink inside the shadow of the Earth is untrue because all satellites sit within the Earths' shadow at night. ;)

An assumption that the object is scaled so large that it would have been detected before is possibly an answer. Perhaps it has been detected before, though I think not. One would need to view records.

It may be the case that the second foci of the elipse which forms the orbit of the asteroid(?) is so distant from the sun that the oribit is extremely large. It may be the case that it is an orbit in excess of the orbit we associate with the big comets for example. The orbit of Halleys' comet for example, might be only a shard of the size of the orbit of this object. It may have an orbital cycle which is many hundreds of years old.

It may be the first time in living memory that a person has captured it on film. It was only after repeated passings of Halley's comet that Edmond Halley became synonomous with the comet. Archival workers had to attribute the discovery of the orbital cycle to Mister Halley before the comet could receive its' name.

So there are many questions to be answered before I attribute the object to a falling poo-poo or flotsam from the sky lab or some such other terrestrial object.:)

It may bash and bang a rocks on its' way out into the outer solar system and fail to return or may return.

[Uchtungbaby]

Loomberah,

I'm using a national geographic Hugo 125mm telescope. Attached to the telescope is a homemade camera mount. The camera mount houses a digital camera.

The location is in a northern region of Tasmania. The photo was taken on a Saturday night. While the world partied the wanderer moved across the cosmos, tumbling like discarded flotsam in front of the lunar face. One moment it was there silhuoetted against the moon, the next it had passed.

Had I taken the time to time the transit of the object I might now know its' speed. Knowing its' speed would assist location once direction has been established.:)

[loomberah]

So, did you actually see it moving? Did you take any other photos of the Moon around the same time, any other photos of anything bright with your lens set to a high f/#? They will no doubt show the dust spot too, and the 2 in the upper part of the Moon if none of them moved.

Looking at the image, the dark spot in the middle is about 20" across, so:

*IF* it was a 1m diameter weather balloon, it would have been about 10km range.

*IF* it was a satellite at say 500km range it would have to be about 50m across, ie it is not a satellite as its not ISS.

*IF* it was an asteroid half way to the Moon it would be about 20km diameter, and there are no asteroids that big anywhere near Earth now. There are unlikely to be any undiscovered Near-Earth asteroids that size anyway.

A small dust spot would look exactly like what you have in your image.

Gordon

[Astroman]

Now I have had a closer look, it does look like a speck of dust. Very similar but not the same as I have seen on my images.

[okiscopey]

Dear Mr. Uchtungbaby,

I'm collecting material for a new website that is destined to become one of the most referenced URLs on the Web and rival UTube in popularity. I hope that you will allow me to include some of the recent material you've posted on IIS, as it's all ideal content.

The site will be called "www.great-ideas-yeah-right.com.au" and I have every confidence you will allow me to include your lunar-transit image and ideas. You will have your own page which will be updatable at any time with a personal access code as you derive new facts on the object's orbit and other details as you work them out. I see your observations being included in in the section alongside 'Planet Barbarossa', 'PCM mirrors' and similar material.

Please do not read me incorrectly: although some of the items on the 'g-i-y-r' site will be jokes, mistakes or hoaxes, these will exist only to provide light relief from the serious content, which is designed to bring 'left-field' and disputed sightings and theories to the fore. 'Anomalous astronomical observations' will be one of the serious sections, with all content being supported by some sort of physical evidence, similar to your photograph.

I am dismayed by some of the responses on this site which have unfairly suggested your sighting is due to sensor dust or some similar terrestrial effect, and hope that my offer for inclusion of your observations in this new web site will help redress any negative feelings you may have about our community. By the way, there is a separate section on 'dust artefacts' in digital images (especially the one that started World War Three in 1989!) but I don't think that's the appropriate section in your case. There is obviously something real passing between the earth and its moon. In my view, an asteroid or intergalactic mothership are the only two possible explanations.

If you could send me more details on the other topics you've covered here, I'd be most grateful as the site is a bit deficient in things astronomical. In particular, some original diagrams and calculations relating to the real purpose of the Eiffel and ABC Brisbane towers (as giant reflector telescopes) and perhaps some further explanation of your observations about primary school children disputing the Einsteinian mass-energy equation. As a primary school teacher, I have experienced the same questions from my year three students, but I have been at a loss to explain how they came to this knowledge.

There will be a section on 'yeah-right' dealing with the science of new materials. I feel that your new formulations of commonly-ocurring material such as 'cardboard, paper and water based glue' to support the weight of a 95kg humanoid will attract many materials scientists to the site and help promote its ranking in the googlesphere.

Also if you could send some more information on "why it is better for a child to view celestial objects during periods of atmospheric disturbance (i.e. smog)" I can include this in the 'ophthalmology' section, which also is lacking material at this stage.

Thank you in anticipation.

Mike. (Editor, www.great-ideas-yeah-right.com.au (http://www.great-ideas-yeah-right.com.au))

[ice9481]

That night, Sunday a.m., I caught this object (likely a satellite) moving through Corona Australis. I wonder whether anyone can track it backwards and see if it was anywhere near the moon round about Saturday 6:30 pm?

[matt]

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Awesome...and well said!!

:lol:

LMAO

[Uchtungbaby]

okaydockhe Okiscopey,

you are free to use the gifs that I put up for any revision you so choose. It is a free world after all.

Getting back to it. I was thinking that I would need to find the triangular shaped shadow that occupies the inside of the dominant crater in the image. The crater is of Copernicus. If I know the size of the crater then I get an idea of the size of the base measure of the shadow occupying the crater wall.

How do we get a crude measure of the the length of the shadow? We can scale the size of the crater to the size of the diameter of the Moon. To do this we simply stack copies of the crater across the diagram like rosarie beads across a persons' face.

I took an outside measure of the crater photo, so I ended up with a crater that is 1/30th the diameter of the Moon. I have attached a diagram showing the method that I used to establish the base length of the crater.

Knowing the size of the crater will enable me to know the size of the shadow which occuppies most of its' circumference. For now, I have found one length without resorting to a text which will tell me the correct size of the crater. I already know the correct size, but that size is unimportant because, the asteroid is only of significance to me.:)

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4770/moonwithdotbkb3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Uchtungbaby]

Loomberah,

I think I saw it move discernibly. I must say that at the time I was taken aghast by it because, I thought that my mirror was dirty. I didn't want my mirror to get dirty. Other photos were taken but the quality is not very good because the camera mount doesn't always centre the picture properly.

The camera mount is actually made of cardboard using a tissue box and an empty toilet roll glued together using papier mache methodologies. I just couldn't afford to buy a camera/telescope coupling, so I had to make it myself. It would have cost me 30-40 dollars ya know!

Anyway, maybe if you search the web you can find a catalogue of dust particle images on lens. That would be an interesting catalogue to look at now that I think about it. Of course, you know that there is only one organisation which has a catalogue of specs which have caused the creation of a spectacle.;)

[Garyh]

Oh boy this is one interesting thread.....;).
I am assuming you think this is a shadow cast on the moon by the object?
How can you tell if its a shadow or a silluette of a object crossing the path of the moon?
If its a silluette, how can you tell by a image like this the distance it is away from the viewer or the moon by a matter of fact?
I think this object is much closer to you than you first thought...
very close.....:P
Do you have other pics with the object and a timeframe between them. I would like to see them posted..:thumbsup:

[Ric]

Quote "No, it's not a mirror spectre. I hosed off the mirror with the garden hose before I began.:) " unquote.

:scared: Do you know how much rubbish comes out of a garden hose in the way of dust ,dirt rocks, bugs, chemicals etc.

I hope that was a joke.

Cheers :)

[Uchtungbaby]

Garyh,

no, I don't think the object is a shadow cast onto the surface of the Moon, though the view exists to be explored at a later time perhaps.

I've attached a diagram which locates the picture in lunar time. In the image you can see Copernicus and a long shadow stretching across the crater basin.

The crater wall is obviously shorter than the crater diameter. In fact, a general universal rule throughout the universe is- the longer the shadow is from an object the lower the light source will be in relation to the object.

From the shadow on Copernicus I can see that night is approaching on the Lunar surface inside the Copernicus crater. The shadow stretches quite far, so we may say that the sun is lower than 45 degrees and approaching 0 degrees. At an estimate it is later afternoon inside the Copernicus crater.

To test the theory all one need do is grab a stick, place it in the ground, and watch how the shadow stretches as the sun sinks in the west. As the sun sinks in the west, shadows get longer.

At an estimate I would say that the line of shadow heading to the sun is roughly 15 to 35 degrees (.i.e.,d1), and that is all I can say on the issue for now, until I deduce more information from the image.:)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6617/copernicuscraterbmv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)