Unidentified Object in Corona

I took a picture of the night sky and stars one night, and after closley insopecting the picture I noticed some anomolies. My first reaction was that they were a glitch but there were only five pictures with them out of a hundred or so.

The object is in the middle of the constelation corona. The exposure was 60 seconds, so all the stars of corona are stretched except for the one anomoly in the middle of corona.

The image (do not scroll over, the image is in the far bottom-left corner constellation, Corona):


I didn't see the object in the sky at the time of the picture. I was trying to photograph a Cosmos series satellite which crossed Cephaus, which didn't turn out. I don't know if the object in Corona was actually there at the time, or if this was added by the camera after due to data corruption.

Can anyone tell me if this is really a glitch or what? I can't explain why that object does not appear stretched like the other stars immediatly around it, as if it were stationary or orbiting with the earth's rotation.

Any input is appreciated really. I'm looking for an explanation as to what could cause this.

EDIT:

I cropped the two pictures. Here they are:

(00:19):


(00:22):


The anomolies should be easier for everyone to find now. Any ideas?

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

I'm looking, but don't see anything. What area of pic is it in?
Edit To Add: Is it about 1.5 inch from treetop?

spec


[edit on 3-8-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

I can't see anything out of the ordinary either...perhaps it's because I don't know where stars should be, and it seems like he/she is saying that there's a star or something there that shouldn't be there...

reply to post by Svoboda


Well...whatever it is, it's certainly stationary.

A geosynchronous satellite (of one sort or another)?

You say this came out on a couple of shots out of about a hundred?
Do you have the other image available?

And were these anomalous shots taken at the start of the imaging, during or at the end?

Cheers.

ETA; Guys, to find the stationary light point, look at the treetops...you'll see stretched stars..the lowest and brightest of these (left side), is just South West of the anomalous light point. So, look up North East about an inch, and you'll see it.


Edit to add again...

Hang on a moment..have had another good look at the image, and there are LOADS of stationary light points on the image..at least 6 or 7.

Apart from dust particles on the lens, is there another 'rational', astronomically related reason to see a large numbers if fixed light points, on a 60 second exposure? Shouldn't they all be elongated?


[edit on 3/8/2010 by spikey]

[edit on 3/8/2010 by spikey]

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by Svoboda

 

Hang on a moment..have had another good look at the image, and there are LOADS of stationary light points on the image..at least 6 or 7.

Apart from dust particles on the lens, is there another 'rational', astronomically related reason to see a large numbers if fixed light points, on a 60 second exposure? Shouldn't they all be elongated?

[edit on 3/8/2010 by spikey]

[edit on 3/8/2010 by spikey]

I know there are many other stars which appear stationary, but those stars are all together in the same part of the sky; stars which get closer to the North Star and Ursa Minor. Those stars do not rotate like the other stars of the sky.

What confuses me, is the one in Corona because all the stars of Corona are stretched, except for the one anomoly. As far as I know that star doesn't belong to that constellation, and is not naturally there.

There is also another of these "stationary stars" to the right of the tree, just a little bit below the other star of interest. I can upload another picture which was taken just before the picture I have if anyone wants to compare.

Some background before I continue:

Date & Time: July 29 2010 - 0:22
Direction: West
Camera: F2.8 60s ISO 100
Location: N. Burlington, Ontario, Canada

I spend hours each night trying to photograph things like Jupiter, meteors, etc.. I only noticed these anomolies yesterday.

Picture 2 (0:19):


The object is now in the middle of the picture, same altitude as before, to the left of Corona. Corona is also now missing a star compared to the other picture.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

reply to post by Svoboda


Thanks for the info Svoboda.

I'm sketchy on astronomy, but i am interested in it.

Have you seen the very small and dark, almost black anomaly? I'd be interested if this is present in the other image.

It's impossible to see it, without zooming in quite high. It's near the middle of the image, over to the right of center of the image, roughly North West of the highest tip of the right side tree.

The strange thing about these spherical, apparently stationary anomalies, is that i have zoomed in and so far found two that are identical.

I found one that looks perfectly spherical, and curiously had what appeared to be three evenly spaced dark, and quite faint circles above it, slightly off center, dipping to the right...i wrote this off as a camera artifact, until i found another, very similar looking spheroid, complete with the three faint circles above it, only this time, they were on the opposite side to the first.

I've taken crops, and i'll upload them to my account. I'll edit and post them here, when they're done.

Double post.

My apologies.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by Svoboda

 

Have you seen the very small and dark, almost black anomaly? I'd be interested if this is present in the other image.

That could be a dead pixel. My camera always does produce a black sphere in the same area each picture I take regardless. It's to the right, and it's not an anomoly.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Zeta Reticulan]

reply to post by Zeta Reticulan


Zeta Reticulan, that picture you just posted shows a dead pixel. That is not the anomoly. I've known that my camera does that for a long time now. The anomolies are simply stars which are not naturally occuring.

The anomoly is extremely small, like only a couple pixels big, even smaller than the stars. You have to look closley. Resizing the image, and making it smaller makes it impossible to detect.

I am not editing the images (cropping, adding arrows, etc.) because I want to provide the original images streight from my camera.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

I uploaded two more pictures with similar objects. Both the objects in question are beneith the constellation Cepheus, and appear stationary or unaffected by earth's orbit unlike stars. This could be a geosynchrous satellite but I have no way of proving that. I thought these were glitches.

(01:37):


(02:14):


These are just here to compare, or use as a reference. The stars which appear stationary under Cepheus. They're hard to find because of their size.

My question is: what would cause these stars to appear stationary? It this totally natural or a glitch?

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

I can't at all tell what you seem to be referring too.

Originally posted by MisterMan
I can't at all tell what you seem to be referring too.

Stars which appear unaffected by earth's rotation. Normally, because of the 60 second exposure, stars appear more as lines. There are some which, even if they are surrounded by stretched stars, appear round and small.

The anomolies are EXTREMILY hard to find due to their small size.

Look back at the original post, at the edit I just made. I added some cropped images which should make the objects more obvious, and easy to see.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

reply to post by Svoboda


You beat me to the corona crop, but i'll add mine here too.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/10b6e0601b50.jpg[/atsimg]
Corona Australis with center anomaly.

Here's one of the 'dark or dead pixels' area.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/33963cce421d.jpg[/atsimg]

And here's another stationary, spherical anomaly with what looks like 3 dark dots above and to it's side.

Looks like it's reflecting light rather than emitting it.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d3a4aeeb19e7.jpg[/atsimg]

Cheers.

reply to post by spikey spherical anomaly with what looks like 3 dark dots above and to it's side.

 

Compression artifacts



[edit on 3-8-2010 by Zeta Reticulan]

reply to post by Zeta Reticulan


The 'dots' i'd say are compression artifacts, although the spheroids i'm not sure about.

I'd have to say, geo sat, if i was to guess.

If it's dust or crud on the camera lens, it's moving around. it changes position relative to the image boundaries. If the camera settings are the same for the 2 images, if the spheres were dust, it would stay in the same position.

ETA;

svoboda, if you turned your porch light out, you'd get less light pollution in your shots.

[edit on 3/8/2010 by spikey]

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by Svoboda

 

You beat me to the corona crop, but i'll add mine here too.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/10b6e0601b50.jpg[/atsimg]
Corona Australis with center anomaly.

I can see that the object in the center is elongated. It is just not as obvious as the other time-lapse distortions. The reason is probably that it is very small. That would explain why you weren't able to see it. Anyone else notice that?

ETA: I realize it is elongated in the wrong direction. It is elongating towards the side of the picture while the stars are elongating towards the top. So it might be a satellite moving very slow. Possibly the ISS, although I think it would be moving much faster. The object is obviously small though.

[edit on 8/3/2010 by dbloch7986]

[edit on 8/3/2010 by dbloch7986]

I found some information on heavens-above.com which may correspond with the geostationary satellite idea.

[Sorry I posted data from the wrong day]

Here is a list of passes for that night:

List of Passes

GEOS 3 Rocket:
Possib ly Satellite Pass

I don't know for sure though. As far as I knew before these pictures were taken, I thought satellites were too dim to be picked up by my camera.

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]

[edit on 3-8-2010 by Svoboda]