Strange light over Melbourne 23/8/11

I live in the norther burbs of Melbourne.

About an hour ago I was out in the front garden having a smoke when I saw a bright but tiney light in the sky - like a star but in day time. I rushed inside and grabbed my camers.

Coincidence - I got a new camera and lense yesterday, it is a Sony Aplha A580 with a Tamron 18-270mm PZD zoom. Brilliant bit of kit.

I grabbed the camera and put it onto Aperture priority end set the exposure compensation to -2 stops. Set the Apperture to about F7 to F9 to try and maintian the best sharpness. I knew in such bright light the camera would automatically select ISO100 and the camera was already set to Large Fine files. So I knoew I would get the best possible immages. Luckilyy the A580 has built in anti shake, so I could do this hand held just leaning on a car.

Got some fabulous shots!

There are a lot of them as I was shooting a 5 frames per second as I did not want to miss anything.

Where can I upload the origional immages to? They are 3.8 to 4.5 Mb each.
I will also crop some at 100% and 200%.

What else should I do?

ETA - The light was to my SSW at first travelking due west. Pics soon!

reply to post by Shamatt


waiting

Will be very anxious to see how they turn out. Subscribed, just in case you do come back.

reply to post by Shamatt


Waiting to see the pics...and what exactly were you smoking? lol..jk..post pics asap!

new to the forums, will wait on pics as well, because I am from Melbourne as well.

reply to post by Shamatt


Upload them onto ATS. Click on Tools then Pictures then Upload.

Make it so!

reply to post by Shamatt


gday Shamatt,

go to TOOLs,
then PICTUREs,
then UPLOAD,
and follow instructions,,,

then click on the pic u want to use, and under it will appear some info,
eg: EMBED info,
= copy and paste into post...

hope that helps...

seeya

Some crops.
The unedited files may be too large for ATS Media?

Let me know if you want originals....

Pic 1

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c4b2adaaa337.jpg[/atsimg]

Pic 2

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/000b227374c5.jpg[/atsimg]

Pic 3

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/302d64d75fdd.jpg[/atsimg]


For reference, this was about the size of an aveage star. I thought it odd that I could see it in the day. Thank god my new super zoom arrived yesterday!

good zoom, looks like a balloon probably reflecting huge amounts of light until you focused on it
quite a grand day today

reply to post by Shamatt


Damn that camera of yours is not messing around! I wish all UFO sightings recorded their footage with whatever camera you're using.

Now that said, you say this object is how big? The size of a star? I hate to say it, but it does look like a balloon to me.

reply to post by Shamatt


Yes please Original ones would be appreciated. Thank you

*Even if you could upload just one of the originals

Definitely appears to be a balloon to me, you can see the tethering segment on the bottom of it.

The first pic, it's facing directly at the camera, secopnd pic, it's side on. etc.

If not a weather balloon then still some sort, imo.

reply to post by Shamatt


It does look like a balloon but more info might help. Was this object moving? upward? side to side? was it keeping the same consistent speed in whatever direction it was going? Nice pics by the way.

Hi ! I saw this exact same "light" over Melbourne (Carlton) on Saturday at around 1pm. It was behaving strange and seemed to be just sitting high up in the sky. It did look like a bright star at the time. It was cloudy so I struggled to keep it in view and it was difficult to discern any movement of the object because of the clouds. It was however below the clouds, of this I was certain. I suspected that it might be a weather balloon of sorts. Although there was an other object that I occasionally caught a glimpse of that was floating next to it that was emitting a red and then purple light ? Maybe something tethered to it ? It was strange.

Is there any way to know for sure if it was a weather balloon ? Does the meteorological Bureua release this information ?

Good job with the photos !!! I unsuccessfully tried to take pics with my phone camera.


EDIT : What I saw very much resembled what the vid showed in the "Mass Sighting in Carmichael" thread. But I saw only one white and one red/purple orb/light.

As a fellow Melbournite I found these photos very interesting. I'm gonna say it looks like a balloon as well, regardless these are very awesome pics, well done sir!

The two shots above are on a photography site I use. Have a look/download from there. These contain all the exif information you would expect to see.

This was odd. To those that know Mel - I am in Reservoir. This was south south west and travelled East, then North East. It was very slow, stopping for long periods. I watched it for at least 10 minutes.

It also occasionally flashed - or strobed or pulsed - momentarily gaining in light intensity like a camera flash had gone off. It would also dissapear and reappear regularly.

ETA

I just realised why the pics are a little grainy - My camera was not set to Auto ISO as I thought it was - so all these shots are ISO 800. Well, still getting used to the new camera! lol

reply to post by Shamatt


It seems that my experience was very similar to yours. But I saw it 2-days ago Did you see a second light emitting/reflecting orb/object close by to the white one that you were witnessing ?

I ran home to get my binoculars to get a better view of the object but could not relocate the light once I got home. Gone

Great shots!! First things first though to be ruled out or in: Geo-stationary satellite of some sort or weather balloon. Does look like something is hanging down from it in one pic.

Again: Good manual shooting.

Great photos.

Doesn't look like a balloon to me. It's too perfectly round. Especially if you saw it strobing.

Keep the camera ready and an eye out for more sightings.

Just want to say how refreshing it is for someone to shoot with a quality lens and post pictures, including pics with the exif data.



Well done.