Blinking Stationary Object in the Sky

I watch this guys videos often...he is a satellite watcher looking to find that smoking gun proof kind of things and uploads any oddities he notes.
This one had me stumped.

What its not:
Typical satellite (as its stationary)
fireflys
airplane





My thoughts of what it could be.

Superhigh asyncronis orbit satellite irridium flare...
neutron star...
a UFO...
angels flashing a mag light...
weather balloon filled with swamp gas reflecting the light from venus.

reply to post by SaturnFX

Interesting. It does seem stationary and to flash at about 12 second intervals. I agree it's not a plane or low-orbit satellite.

As for a geosynchronous satellite, that could be a possibility, but it would have to be some kind of device on the satellite that flashes Infrared at 12 second intervals.

That would be my first guess.

It's not Iridium flare, here's what that looks like:



Neutron star is a possibility, I think they can rotate in 12 seconds but i'm not sure how this effect could result from that.

If the photographer was serious he would provide details like the location, date, time, and direction of the fideo, so you could plug that data into stellarium to see if a star shows up there.

www.stellarium.org...

In this case the star might not be visible in the visible light wavelengths (possibly only in IR or other frequencies) so I'm not sure if Stellarium includes such stars.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur


If the photographer was serious he would provide details like the location, date, time, and direction of the fideo, so you could plug that data into stellarium to see if a star shows up there.

Well, the date, time, and location is of course timestamped on the video itself.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Superb Superb Superb!! This is almost exactly the same thing that I have been seeing.The only difference is that mine would flash in slightly different parts of the sky as though there were three objects flashing each other.However this is the closest I have seen to mine on film and is the same size of camera like flash f.I started a thread a way back on it and also bought a cheap gen one night vision scope in the hope of seeing more detail if it happened again.So far I have been out of luck.Defo not going to give up after seeing this vid.Star and flag.Cheers. Oh heres the link to my thread. www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I'm no expert in this field, in regards to satellites etc...But I do know that, IR or even Black and White cameras do pick up the beams even from a T.V. remote, and display it as if it were just pure light.

I'm not saying its a "T.V." remote, haha...I'm just offering a little info, in regards to cameras and what they see. Maybe that info could help determine/or eliminate a source.

Or I'll just keep my noob mouth shut. haha. I just know cameras and stuff.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Arbitrageur


If the photographer was serious he would provide details like the location, date, time, and direction of the fideo, so you could plug that data into stellarium to see if a star shows up there.

Well, the date, time, and location is of course timestamped on the video itself.

I see date, time, and youtube userID

Maybe you know the location of that user (I don't), but even if you do, you still need a direction to look in Stellarium, as the universe is a big place to search!

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

As for a geosynchronous satellite, that could be a possibility, but it would have to be some kind of device on the satellite that flashes Infrared at 12 second intervals.

Why infrared specifically? Although image intensifiers are sensitive in the near infrared part of the spectrum they are also sensitive across the entire visible part of the spectrum as well.

It could be a dead satellite at very high altitude. I see these going across the sky often through my night scope at lower altitudes. Because they are no longer controlled they tumble causing reflective surfaces to flash at regular intervals. One way to provide evidence for this is to plot the flash positions in Photoshop to see if they are sequential and either in a strait line or on top of each other.

reply to post by dainoyfb


I said infrared because the green hue to the image tells me the photographer is using the infrared feature on his camera. Therefore the flashes are being picked up on that infrared setting. It's possible the light source could also be emitting other frequencies in addition to infrared, or maybe not. I only said that in case the object is not seen in visible light frequencies, it could make a difference. In fact it would be helpful to know if he could also see this object through his binoculars without the camera IR. If so then we would know it can also be seen in visible light, but I'm not making that assumption yet.

It's not stationary, it changes its position against the stars. Probably not a satellite, an orbit that slow would be extremely high. Pretty slow for an full sized aircraft. Balloon with a strobe maybe. Definitely a flashing light in the sky.

[edit on 9/10/2009 by Phage]

I seen this last night!!!

I was going to get on to ask about this but I didnt have the video to show you.
Last night around midnight I took my NVGs out to look at the stars and I was looking aprox at a 55 degree angle up and this was looking a little south west. "a little more south then west" (looking from central Indiana) I knew it wasnt a plane because it was to high. It blinked aprox every 7 sec. or so.

[edit on 10-9-2009 by TrainDispatcher]

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Actually the deep green hue is representative of output from an image intensifiers phosphor screen. Also the circular field of view suggests an image intensifier. The film poster also states they are using an image intensifier, an ATN Night Spirit gen 2 to be specific.

Also when a camera is used in "IR mode" it means that the camera's near infrared blocking filter has been removed from the optical path in order to allow more light throughput but the camera is still sensitive in the visible part of the spectrum. This still creates a color image but with a color balance offset.

Originally posted by Phage
It's not stationary, it changes its position against the stars. Probably not a satellite, an orbit that slow would be extremely high. Pretty slow for an full sized aircraft. Balloon with a strobe maybe. Definitely a flashing light in the sky.

[edit on 9/10/2009 by Phage]

I am glad you have said it was changing its position because I also thought it maybe but was not sure.The ones I have seen have been 3 or 4 flashing each other from different positions in the sky but like this one in the same part of the sky.

reply to post by dainoyfb

That would not account for the times I have seen the same sort of thing with my naked eye and through binoculars.The only thing that has come close to maybe explaining it is zero point meteor strikes.



[edit on 10-9-2009 by tarifa37]

Originally posted by Phage
It's not stationary, it changes its position against the stars. Probably not a satellite, an orbit that slow would be extremely high. Pretty slow for an full sized aircraft. Balloon with a strobe maybe. Definitely a flashing light in the sky.

I watched it again after I read your post and you're right, it's moving slowly from top to bottom relative to the stars in the background.

The balloon theory sounds as plausible as any I could think of.

Originally posted by tarifa37
reply to post by dainoyfb

 

That would not account for the times I have seen the same sort of thing with my naked eye and through binoculars.The only thing that has come close to maybe explaining it is zero point meteor strikes.
[edit on 10-9-2009 by tarifa37]

I'm not sure what you mean. Tumbling satellites can be as bright as functional satellites and are on occasion visible to the naked eye. It is just more common to see them through night vision equipment because faint ones can be picked out as well.

Could you provide a reference for the term "zero point meteor strike". I don't know what that is and I tried to Google it without success.

I think it is going to be difficult to rule out a lot of the possibilities until the flashes are plotted. If I have time in the next little while I'll give it a try but I'm not really set up for it.

I certainly wouldn't rule out a balloon at this point either. It would be interesting to see if the light could be picked up again on another night.

Actually phage and Arbitrageur are both wrong. The blinking light keeps its position stationary. what moves is the starfield in the background. If you chek the distance and position against the tree seen in the video u notice that the blinking light remains stationay. also i did not notice the camera changing its position during the video.

just my 2 cents

reply to post by Maestro28

Son of gun. You're right about the stars.

But I checked two frames (8:52:22 and 9:00:24) and the light does move relative to the tree.

I checked the surface winds at Artesia Municipal Airport (airport code ATS!) and at that time they were 2.5 knots. I don't think a balloon can be ruled out (depending on winds aloft) but it did move down the list.

[edit on 9/11/2009 by Phage]

Right u are. altough the movement is definately smaller than the movement of the stars and is in the opposite direction. read starfield moves up, object slightly down. a visual aide here
I also note that the lights intensity is decreasing during the video, object moving away from earth ?

Whatever is flashing up there is doing so to an extremely precise rhythm. I was intrigued enough to study the video frame by frame (all 15,000 of 'em). The first flash is on frame 27, it then misses for 360 frames and flashes at 361. So, adding 361 to 27 = 388. Yep it flashes. Next, 388+361=749 it starts to flash, with the light fully on in frame 750. So, 750+361=1111 (flash). 1111+361=1472 (flash) and so on. Every 361.001 frames shows a flash, almost all lasting one frame only. The tally is forty-three flashes in the whole clip, each separated by 361 frames. I guess this might be expected in that the digital camera has an electronically controlled frame rate and the strobe the same. I say strobe, 'cos I believe it's a conventional aircraft of some kind. It's certainly not an astronomical phenomenon (pulsar, etc), the flash is way too bright and looks 'nearby' to me.
I tried to stabilise the shaky movie (why don't they use a solid mount??) but many of the frames are really too much for my software to handle. I think the logical thing to do is to extract the 43 flash frames and then align and stack them to eliminate the star motion. With a bit of luck, that should produce a series of dots showing the path of the strobe. Will report back if I get that far.

WG3

reply to post by SaturnFX


I watched the same blinking in the sky from upper michigan for the last 2 nights. The star formations are the same. It appears to be the same flash as a strobe light at a very regular interval. I watched it for about 20 min and it moved from next the the last star to the right to the star to the left. it moved from right to left at a very slow rate.