what the hell..... (pics)

Interesting find
You need to post somewhere the entire video in raw format as well (even tho its 3.2gb).

Also the location in the night sky should be correlated to known orbital tracks of man-made objects, things like satellites, the ISS etc. I would think that the following information would be needed to rule out any man-made items from this discussion:

General location (of you on the ground, not sure how close this one needs to be)

Time and date exactly during the observance

Then from the above 2 pieces of information, the 'spot' in the night sky can be roughly determined by looking at your video and in relation to the moon and Venus.

Otherwise, it could be labeled as unknown or satellite or ISS or space junk out there that you managed to capture.


[edit on 6/21/2007 by greatlakes]

I'm with Spoodily. I'd like to see a daytime photo of where you pointed your cam that night.

I setup Stellarium with your date/time/location and the position of Venus is consistent with the location of the mystery object. I also note that Venus is getting near the horizon.

The movement of the dark parts of the mystery object really remind me of a plant structure moving in a slight breeze. You are *sure* Venus was not behind a tree limb or other plant at the time?

Also, we see two different zooms on the object with two different results. I see your cam employs both optical and digital zoom. Was one zoom with digital and the other zoom with optical?

Thanks.

If I were a betting man, and I am. I would say that the image in question IS the pleiades open cluster also known as seven sisters. Because of the camera style, the image is probably being difused. You can also make out the nebula too just like you would with a cheap department store scope.

99% sure thats what it is.

Pleiades and object comparison.

Hmm, yea lol... the Pleiades explanation makes no sense to me...

At this time of year, hasn't the Pleiades cluster in Taurus, set just before the sun? Right now Venus is between Gemini and Leo. It's RA is 3Hours 47Mins where as Gemini is 6 hours and Taurus is 11 hours.

Yeah. Can't be The Pleiades. Completely different part of the sky. You'd have to be able to see through the Earth to see The Pleiades from that place and time!

The one thing of note in the part of the sky depicted in the video is the Praesepe or "Beehive Cluster", a naked-eye open star cluster in Cancer, which in akinda-sorta-in-an-abstract-sort-of-way-if-you-squint-really-hard way may resemble the mystery object IF it was anywhere near bright enough. But it isn't.

Most Likely the M44 Open Cluster Galaxy

Now with the information that the OP has submitted, no need to guess as to what objects were in the area of the sky at that time and date...Just pull out a star chart...

The OP states that:
Location: 28.1200S, 26.0000E (this is South Africa)
Time: 18:30-19:30 hours local time (UST=-2hours from local in South Africa)
Date: 2007.06.19
Direction: WNW/NW

The following are the skychart from that vantage point, from that time and date and looking in that direction at an angle from 0deg to 45deg.



Now zooming in and a rotation of the local area:



So the possible objects that this anomaly can be (in addition to unexplained as well) are:

Moon (clearly seen and not the anomaly, but in the view)

Venus

Saturn

Satellite or man-made orbiting item

Star in the constellation Cancer, Leo or Leo Minor

Any other bright magnitude star in the viewing area

The M44 GALAXY (in the Cancer const.)

Items it cant be are:

Pleiades cluster (its in the Taurus constellation)

Any other star or constellation or planet or moon not in the viewing area

Note: all stars magnitude 6.0 or brighter are listed in the images. All solar system bodies are included as well, satellites however ARE NOT included in the images...

I personally am siding with either Venus, Saturn or the M44 galaxy as being the likely culprits, with the M44 galaxy being my most likely candidate.

M44 Galaxy, an open cluster galaxy


Known as the beehive galaxy, its also one of the objects easily visible to the naked eye. Galileo first observed it as a collection of about 40 stars, and todays large telescopes show about 350 stars. M44 is about 577 light years away, and is about 400 million years old, the same age as the Hyades cluster.

Right Ascension 08 : 40.1 (h:m)
Declination +19 : 59 (deg:m)
Distance 0.577 (kly)
Visual Brightness 3.7 (mag)
Apparent Dimension 95.0 (arc min)

Aratos (260 B.C.) mentioned this object as "Little Mist", Hipparchus (130 B.C.) included this object in his star catalog and called it "Little Cloud" or "Cloudy Star." Ptolemy mentions it as one of seven "nebulae" he noted in his Almagest, and describes it as "The Nebulous Mass in the Breast (of Cancer)". According to Burnham, it appeared on Johann Bayer's chart (about 1600 A.D.) as "Nubilum" ("Cloudy" Object).

Galileo has first resolved this "nebulous" object, and reported: "The nebula called Praesepe, which is not one star only, but a mass of more than 40 small stars."

[edit on 6/21/2007 by greatlakes]

The "object" appears when he is viewing the planet Venus, correct? So how exactly could an entire galaxy, or even a star cluster be BETWEEN Earth and Venus? Makes no sense...

[edit on 21-6-2007 by Diplomat]

Originally posted by Diplomat
The "object" appears when he is viewing the planet Venus, correct? So how exactly could an entire galaxy, or even a star cluster be BETWEEN Earth and Venus?

He pans up and down in the video you can see it if you download the vid...from the moon to Saturn and possibly to either Venus or most likely to the M44 Open Cluster Galaxy. It isnt 'between' anything, see my sky charts above post for your way around the sky on that date and time.

Its certainly a weird object as caught, it could be the planet venus or the m44 galaxy, or it could be something else, not conclusive as yet...

Can we get more video postings?

[edit on 6/21/2007 by greatlakes]

I think great lakes is right. I don't have any planetarium software handy so with all the viewing I have done in the past it just struck me as Pleiades. However, it has to be an open cluster. What other clusters are within the areas his images are at?

Originally posted by greatlakes

Originally posted by Diplomat
The "object" appears when he is viewing the planet Venus, correct? So how exactly could an entire galaxy, or even a star cluster be BETWEEN Earth and Venus?

he pans up and down in the video you can see it if you download the vid...from the moon to venus and possibly to either Saturn or most likely to the M44 galaxy. It isnt 'between' anything, see my sky charts above post for your way around the sky on that date and time.

Well he points the camera at Venus and says something like "that is where Venus is supposed to be." And to me it looks like you can see the light of Venus BEHIND the strange object...

I might be way, way off here, but could it be something on the ground such as a camp fire? It looks like a fire plsating through tall grass or branches. With out day light pictures to compare it's really hard to get an idea of position. Interesting thread.

The other galaxy in the cancer constellation is the: M67 open cluster, but it is far less bright than the M44 galaxy though...

Originally posted by skychief
I might be way, way off here, but could it be something on the ground such as a camp fire? It looks like a fire plsating through tall grass or branches. With out day light pictures to compare it's really hard to get an idea of position. Interesting thread.

Good idea, any way to get more daytime images of the sky area OP? I don't think its a ground object, the pulsating is probably caused by image optics and/or electronics in the camera at that high zoom. All sorts of weird ccd chip effects are seen as well at high zoom....

Originally posted by skychief
I might be way, way off here, but could it be something on the ground such as a camp fire?

Good point. I've considered the possibility that what they say is Saturn is actually Venus with Saturn not visible (too dim) and what he says is Venus is a ground light. I tend to believe his narrative, though. It's so hard to tell in night-time videos.

Hey, greatlakes, great minds think alike, eh? Only I do not think we are seeing
M44, though. If that cluster were visible on the video I think we'd be seeing LOTS of stars.

I still can't shake the "Venus behind a branch" feeling.

Originally posted by IAttackPeople
Hey, greatlakes, great minds think alike, eh? Only I do not think we are seeing
M44, though. If that cluster were visible on the video I think we'd be seeing LOTS of stars. I still can't shake the "Venus behind a branch" feeling.

Yeah pretty much same time starting our posts lol Just that I haadd to write a dissertation post on the matter heh

Greatlakes imho nailed it.

Messier 45 (Pleiades) not visible on the horizon (sorry gents, my bad) - Mag 1.6. EASILY discernible with naked eye even in extremely poor viewing (light pollution, atmosphere, etc).

Messier 44 (Beehive) - Mag 3.7. Still oberveable even with poor seing via naked eye.

I might actually get off my arse, and break out the SCT and image it via CCD in prime focus just for grins.

IF (which I believe) it is a cluster it will basically be in the same position even a few days later. So to the OP, go back out, and start taking some more video. when filming state the stars in the sky that you see as capturing go get some planetarium sofware ( I use cartes du ciel). From there we can pin point easily.

If the OP can rate the skies via magnitude it might make it even easier.

Take care

When the sky clears in a day or two here I'll get out the scope and check M44 out. The colors in the object do not seem real to me, at least for stellar objects. I am wondering if the lens system has caused it.

I thinks the pictures can be a bit misleading as the I believe the object is small but the recording has made it bolder, maybe it's the digital zoom. It may well be an star cluster.

Some interesting information, I guess to astronomers its not so interesting but...

The published magnitudes of deep sky objects (nebulae, galaxies and star clusters) can be quite misleading when it comes to indicating observability. ... At a visual magnitude of 6.5, for example, one might be led to believe that NGC 7293 (the Helix Nebula) would be readily visible in an 8 inch telescope since such an instrument has a limiting magnitude of about 13.5. Experience proves otherwise. Although its published magnitude indicates that this object is bright, it is in fact one of the more difficult deep sky objects, comparable to the Owl Nebula, requiring the best of observing conditions and perhaps a nebula filter to render it visible. Much "fainter" objects such as M27 (the Dumbell Nebula) at magnitude 8 and M57 (the Ring Nebula) at magnitude 9 are spectacular in an 8 inch while the "brighter" Helix might be invisible. Why is it that a telescope capable of seeing a 13th magnitude star might have difficulty showing a 6.5 magnitude nebula? The answer is in the size of the object.

The published magnitudes of deep sky objects indicate integrated brightness, or the total brightness of the object squeezed down to a point. If one could squeeze the light of the Helix, which is 16 arc minutes, or 16 x 60 = 960 arc seconds, in diameter (almost one half the apparent size of the moon) down to a point, it would be concentrated to the brightness of a 6.5 magnitude star. Conversely, if one was to defocus a 6.5 magnitude star to an image size of 960", the defocused disk would hav e an apparent brightness equal to that of the Helix. The reason, therefore, that this nebula appears so dim, is that its available light is spread over a large area. Although many other readily visible objects might be fainter, they are generally s maller, so their total available light is more concentrated resulting in a higher surface brightness. The Ring Nebula, for example is 2.5 magnitudes fainter than the Helix, but at a diameter of approximately 70" is about 14 times smaller so its avai lable brightness is considerably more concentrated resulting in a higher surface brightness.

The surface brightness of an object is therefore directly related to two factors, (1) its size, or more correctly, its area, and (2) its total available light. If two objects were equally bright (same visual magnitude) but one was twice as large, the larger would appear four times fainter since the same amount of light is spread over an area four times larger. Note that area is proportional to the square of the diameter. An object three times larger would appear nine times fainter, and so forth.

M44=3.9 mag and is 95' in size (minutes across) which is fairly large, I believe double the apparent size of our moon...