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.
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.
I agree with the others, it's probably a satellite.
But well done!
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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 :-)
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.
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.
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
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.
No, it's not a mirror spectre. I hosed off the mirror with the garden hose before I began.
...
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?
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.
The object appears to transit between Mare Nectaris and Mare Tranquilitatis as seen from my vantage point in Tasmania.
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uchtungbaby
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.
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!
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.
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.
.
