Unkown Object Imaged in Aquarius

[Darren (Darren Miller)]

Hello,
Early this morning between 1.53AM and 4.03AM AEST I took 99x 1m15s exposures with a 18-55mm lens set to 18mm F3.5 in the hope of catching a Perseids meteor.
I combined the 99 images using Startrails version 2.3 and thought I had captured a Perseid meteor, but when I searched for the individual frame I found that the trail, which is perpendicular to the star trails, forms only when all 99 frames are stacked and appears as a point in the individual frames, while the stars themselves have trailed over each 1m15s exposure.
I have attached a cropped image with a reference star labeled.
Any help in identifying the object would be greatly appreciated

Kind Regards,
Darren

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Hi Altitude and\or GeoSync Satellite is my guess

Do I get a prize ?

[DavidNg (David)]

It appeared the object or light source there is independent of sidereal rotation, therefore it can't be an extraterrestrial object, It couldn't be a satellite, after 2 hours it must be thousands of km away. I guess it is an artifact from your optical system. well I could be very wrong.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

How many of the 99 frames does the object appear in?

[LAW (Murphy)]

I'm with Brent judging by the slight curve I'd say geosynchronous satellite.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...2bbtxdtIiCrtmQ

[Jon (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by LAW

I'm with Brent judging by the slight curve I'd say geosynchronous satellite.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...2bbtxdtIiCrtmQ

Yes; Dec is right for that explanation too.

[Darren (Darren Miller)]

Thankyou for the advice on what the object is.

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

How many of the 99 frames does the object appear in?

Cometcatcher - It appears in the last 85 frames of the 99 frames captured

[Jon (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by Darren

Thankyou for the advice on what the object is.



Cometcatcher - It appears in the last 85 frames of the 99 frames captured

Moving into the morning sunlight?

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Originally Posted by Jon

Moving into the morning sunlight?

Looks like it. Geostationary sats are normally in Sunlight all of the time, except for periods around the equinox twice per year when they go into the Earth's shadow. We are 5 weeks from equinox, but it might be near enough.

And yes geostationary sats do drift in declination, especially when their onboard hydrazine fuel supply runs low for orbital corrections.

Considering you are pointed at the Clarke Belt, like others mentioned it's a good bet this is a geostationary sat with declination drift.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Is Optus B3 still in orbit? I recall when I worked for the company that one of the older sats was getting down on fuel for corrections and was going to be allowed to drift much further off station than it previously would have done.

[sil (Steve)]

Geostationary sat. Picked up one in a set of photos covering 2hr (from around 1am-3am a few months back trying for meteors). Mine was straighter, only travelled a fairly small distance and was present in every single shot.