While monitoring my rig during the night, I notice a single 300s HA sub that had a strange (to me) satellite trail. Most of the time, I observe the satellites as one long streaking line across the image, however this one seems to have appeared from nowhere. Previous subs do not show the same trail. The dotted line is reminiscent of the Star Link satellites but those tend to have that straight line appearance across the entire frame when taking a 300s sub. Any thoughts on what this one could be? I'm mainly just confused on why it only shows up there and nowhere else along the frame.
Something very slow moving then.
The Rosette nebula is close to the celestial equator, so probably something in geosynchronous orbit (those generally aren't perfectly stationary in the sky, but make a figure-8 motion due to the slight inclination and eccentricity of their orbit).
Perhaps a nearby asteroid may be a possibility too, though less likely.
I appreciate your input, the slow moving part is what really peaked my interest!
*piqued
Holy cow I never knew there was an entirely different word for that lol
It’s a weird one for sure.
Wasn't he married to Shakira?
With a 300 second exposure this shot must be compensating for Earth's rotation, so a geostationary satellite leaves a trail.
If that were the case, the trail should be visible in the previous and next subs as well. I think it's more likely that a spinning and tumbling object happened to reflect sunlight for a few seconds.
Depends how much time was elapsed between the frames. If OP was manually swapping filters, it could be long enough for it to enter and exit the frame.
The frames were being taken in succession, one immediately after the other. This schedule in particular was setup for 100 300s subs. That sub was the 85th one.
Can you show us the ones immediately before and after?
https://imgur.com/a/PUaooi4
OK, I am properly mystified.
u/RetroCaridina suggested a satellite flare above, although as far as I'm aware, those too tend to fade in and out gradually.
Perhaps a very small earth-grazing meteor could have caused this? Their trails seem to have a somewhat more consistent brightness than satellite flares. (Although one over such a small area of sky doesn't seem super plausible to me either.)
True, it does seem too uniform to be a satellite flare. But meteor trails aren't uniform either. Also I'm not sure what to make of the dotted appearance of the line.
Another possibility is a cosmic ray hit on the detector, and maybe some structure of the sensor is causing it to be a dotted line.
I've found similar things in 300s subs of Rosette. For me it was 2 different asteroids from the asteroid belt. You might want to run this by the people in the Cloudy Nights forum. They would probably be able to identify it.
At a certain point he came into rays of sun from behind the earth.
That makes a lot of sense, especially with it nearly being sunrise.
If that were the case, I would expect the trail to fade in (or out) more gradually, as the sun progressively rises across Earth's horizon and the lower layer of its atmosphere (from the satellite's perspective)
This looks more like the satellite was at one end of the trail when you started your exposure, and at the other end when it ended.
I once watched the ISS orbit through it's sunset .. It went a beautiful red then faded out
Is this an avenged sevenfold reference?
SO I ARRIVED , NAKED AND COLD
A WELCOMED CHANGE FROM THE ABEYANCE OF A GHOST TOWN CATACOMB
NO NEED FOR COUNSEL I APPRECIATE THE TIME, IM NOT ALONE
THERE WERE DAYS THESE CHILD EYES
WOULD OVERLOOK THE UGLINESS AND FANTASIZE
I was so confused as to how this could be a reference, and then I saw the album art lol.
THE STAGE?!