I caught a UFO on video

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0p4omAwZN4

Here's the story (repeated on the video):

I bought a fisheye CCTV lens from Steve at astroshop.com and put it on a colour camera attached to the outside of my observatory near Brisbane.

It is in an enclosure which causes some reflections (it has doubled up all thestars!), and is not exactly brilliantly focussed either - oh and don't forget the near full moon! I set the camera to a 2.5 sec exposure and left it recording all night with the software set to take a frame every 5 seconds - just for fun.

When I watched it back this morning, there is an object traversing SE-NW at approx 3:07am very bright and possibly with a tail. It takes nearly three mins to go from horizon to horizon and I have checked Calsky and Heavens above for any known object that matches, but nothing.

It would have to be very high to be illuminated by the sun at this time across the whole sky, so that rules out an aircraft. Going too slow for a meteor...

Any ideas?

[allan gould]

Well done, Jonathan.
You managed to capture my ex-wife on a shake-down cruise of her new broomstick.
Allan

[mr bruess]

could be anything

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Well done, Jonathan.
You managed to capture my ex-wife on a shake-down cruise of her new broomstick.
Allan

Good news for you Allan, the speed she was going, you will be be stress free for ages!

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Possibly an old satellite crashing out of orbit. Lot of space junk out there. There was the launch of the Arianne 5 with 2 satellites. The second satellite ejected a cowling about 30 minutes after launch pointing towards earth, it was designed to come through the atmosphere and burn up. All speculation though including the UFO.

[danielsun]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Well done, Jonathan.
You managed to capture my ex-wife on a shake-down cruise of her new broomstick.
Allan

I think it is definitely an old satellite as MalcoLm said and your 2.5 sec exposures is what gives it's tail.
There is that much junk And debris up there that it cannot all be labeled.

Cheers Daniel.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

There was the launch of the Arianne 5 with 2 satellites. The second satellite ejected a cowling about 30 minutes after launch pointing towards earth, it was designed to come through the atmosphere and burn up.

That would have been a great catch! The Arriane lifted off a few hours after this one sadly, but I certainly agree that Space junk is a likely candidate.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Too much AstroJunk. Can't get away from him...I mean it.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Too much AstroJunk. Can't get away from him...I mean it.

[mozzie (Peter)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Well done, Jonathan.
You managed to capture my ex-wife on a shake-down cruise of her new broomstick.
Allan

[PeterM]

Hi Jonathan,

Any chance it could be to do with this? Just throwing it out there.
Haven't looked at its orbit or visibility, otherwise beam me up.

Progress M-09M/41P undocked nominally this morning at 7:41am EDT after hooks opened at 7:38am. An automated 15-sec separation burn with DPO-K2 thrusters followed at 7:44am (delta V 0.67 m/s) and a retrograde phasing burn with the SKD engine at 10:48am. The cargo ship, loaded with trash, is now continuing to phase away from the ISS. It will perform two retrograde burns tomorrow (4/23), one on 4/24, another one on 4/25 and on 4/26 (~9:15am) the 67.4 m/s deorbit burn for destructive reentry.

Progress M-09M cargo vehicle undocked from the ISS on April 22. At 15:38 MSK Friday the vehicle was commanded for departure, and undocked from the Pirs module in 3 min. The cargo supplier was docked to this port on Jan. 30.
Progress M-09M will continue its autonomous mission till April 26 to be used for Radar-Progress scientific experiment to investigate reflection feature of the plasma generated by operations of the Progress propulsion. On the 26th, it will be drowned in the remote area of the Pacific.




http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr....+International


PeterM

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Too much AstroJunk. Can't get away from him...I mean it.

When I burn up on re-entry, I plan to be a lot brighter that that one

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by PeterM

Any chance it could be to do with this? Just throwing it out there.
Haven't looked at its orbit or visibility, otherwise beam me up.

Everything is worth exploring right now, it must have been -4 mag or brighter so was not an insignificant bit of metal if it was burning up on the way down.

[PeterM]

Would be interesting if it was.... Astrojunk videos Astrojunk from the ISS on its way to its demise into that good old dumping ground of the Pacific (again). That it is due to on the 26th. Haven't been able to find its orbit since departing ISS but worth backtracking to separation from ISS, seems coincidental, dates are close. -4 is bright for a pooh carrying tin in space, however I remember seeing the tether that broke away from the Shuttle years ago and it was very easily seen under dark Kooralbyn skies.

PeterM.

[White Rabbit]

Looks like a plane to me. Notice how the distance travelled between frames differs. This would be consistant if it were blinking lights on the wings of the plane. Say the time between blinks is 2secs and the pause between shoots is 2.5secs, the image would apear in some frames and not others. Thats what i thinks happening here.

Occams Razor.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

It certainly could be something going back to RAAF Amberly. I watch the F-111's going that way after river fire and they may be bright enough to cause that trail. A normal aircraft would be too dim.

I was planning to drop them an email

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Forgot to mention, the gaps are due to every other exposure being dropped on capture to save disk space.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Well done, Jonathan.
You managed to capture my ex-wife on a shake-down cruise of her new broomstick.
Allan

Now that cracked me right up.

Cheers,
John B

[astroearth (Carl)]

Hi,
There is a high probability that the “UFO” was a high orbiting Military satellite.
Military satellites orbiting data won’t be available using normal channels.
astroearth.net

[leon]

Nice capture, Yep, I caught one of those some time ago, very interesting when it happens and we first see the results of our nights imaging.

Leon