Please help identify this streak of light in the sky

reply to post by woogleuk

I've never seen a meteor steaking straight down..or is that just an illusion that it is in the pic?

Originally posted by njl51
reply to post by woogleuk

 

I've never seen a meteor steaking straight down..or is that just an illusion that it is in the pic?

A meteor can appear to travel up, down, or any direction in the sky. It's actually very difficult to determine the true direction a meteor is going. Remember, there is effectively no up/down/sideways to a meteoroid traveling through space. Up and down has more relevance to us on the ground, because of gravity, but gravity has very little noticeable effect on a meteor that is on the edge of space.

Having said all that, I'm more doubtful that ever that what is in the photograph is a meteor. As Alastair McBeath pointed out, it's unlikely that a meteor would only be visible in just a single frame - something I had not considered before.

reply to post by FireballStorm


Yeah hence the mystery. I had considered a camera artifact, but zooming in it is clearly a fireball of sorts. I guess it's just one of those things that will go unexplained.

Thanks for your time guys, sorry I haven't had much of a chance to respond, I'm getting married tomorrow and things have been a bit hectic.

reply to post by woogleuk


I think it's possible that it just has a similar shape to a fireball. Camera/sensor glitch of some kind seems like a good possibility to me, although I've never seen one quite like that before - but it may only be seen on a particular camera.

One other possibility perhaps is the rotors hitting something in the air and causing a spark.

Ever seen what happens when rotor blades hit grains of sand?

www.youtube.com...

Congratulations woogle, and hope you have a good day!

It's difficult to say what it is from the size of the image. The fact that it is streaking vertically makes this very interesting. It appears to be traveling downward, but that could just be an illusion (it could have started below and faded as it traveled upwards). UFO's have been known to shed metallic debris which fall downward. Would be curious to know what was above.

These fireball type sitings are becoming quite common. Here is one I recently had:

reply to post by FireballStorm


Ah, yes, my mistake- I thought alldaylong was suggesting that the artifact in the picture was caused by the ISS- guess I should read more carefully.

earthdude, whilst some helicopters do carry magnesium flares, I dont think thats what we are seeing here, particularly as its above the helicopter, not below. And again, the 1/12 of a second thing would suggest a pretty useless decoy flare!

not a commercial contrail....those rings are perfectly symetrical....it's way fast....whether powered or a meteor no tellin' it's not the typical pulse jet look

reply to post by Sequence33


Your photograph looks like a section of contrail from a commercial jet aircraft. I can't see anything there that suggests it's a fireball or train/trail left by a fireball.

OMG How many times?!!??? Its NOT A CONTRAIL of ANY SORT! Whatever this anomaly is IT IS NOT A CONTRAIL!!!. It is only visible for 1/12th of a second. If you had bothered to read the thread you would know this.

Contrails are made from water vapour, and the very shortest one would be visible for is several seconds.

So, for the last time, THIS IS NOT, AND CANNOT BE A CONTRAIL OF ANY SORT!

Wheeeeew, and breathe........

Can you by chance put the original photos? I'm curious to check out the EXIF information from them. Also, what model of camera were they using. I know the top of the line Canon 1D shoots 10fps...and costs around $6500. I''m curious what camera shoots 12fps like you mentioned.

I'm questioning the speed of the image that was taken. There seems to be more blur in the rotors than there should be. The image I took below pretty much has the prop stopped on the plane. (Using a Canon 7D). Compared to the helicopter you presented, it has far more rotor blur than I would expect.



Edit: Removed reply info, since it was for the thread and not the previous poster.

reply to post by gavron


Not my thread, mate, but read first post. It was a Fuji, and he claims he took a burst of 12 frames over 1-1/2 seconds- hence the rotor blades appearing to be stopped.

There may be a fraction of a second discrepancy in the actual shutter speed, but not enough to allow this to be a contrail.

interesting pic. i oriented it horizontally for some filtered closeups, for your perusal

Originally posted by zayonara
I take lots of photos of things that fly and go fast so I will pose a possible explanation. The copter is possibly MUCH closer to the camera than the (contrail?). The copter is flying fast to the right. The photographer is doing a great job of panning to keep the copter in frame. As he pans, he passes a contrail which gets caught in one frame, and is out of the other frames. With a fast pan, it is very possible for a distant object to cross a frame in milliseconds. This is especially true with a long zoom.

I do like this theory.

It needs sight of the frames either side of the one shown.

Panning to keep the helicopter in frame, the photograph includes a new portion of sky in each frame as the camera moves right.

With no identifying marks in the sky, clouds, it is difficult to note this movement.

What is intriguing is the pulses in, what might be, the contrail. It reminds me of those "Doughnuts on a string" contrail sightings some time back. Has the photographer captured proof of a high flying fast moving plane? Aurora maybe?

Originally posted by woogleuk
reply to post by greyer

 

I've scaled the image down so people can see it better without having to scroll across, it's the stream below the helicopter. Please read the OP so you get an idea of timings.

It's a plane + contrail at a much higher altitude than the helicopter.

reply to post by RMFX1


Hey RM,

I would have said that at first glance, but the photographer said it was 1 of 12 frames of a burst shot, and the object only appears in the one frame, that removes the contrail theory sadly.

I did include one of the other frames for comparison.

I'm going with daytime meteor for now, unless I can find a better explanation, I had considered camera artifact until I zoomed in and took a closer look.

reply to post by RoScoLaz


That just confirms to me more that it is something entering the atmosphere at high speed, IF it is a meteor, it must have been going at some pace (given size to have been visible during the day) to have appeared and disappeared so quickly.

Thanks for the pictures.

One other possibility could be a cosmic ray hitting the sensor, a bit like these:



It would certainly explain the short duration, and no sign of it in previous/subsequent frames.

reply to post by FireballStorm


Would a cosmic ray be in the visible spectrum of light? It would explain the extremely short duration (Which rules out 'contrails!!!!).

I personally think its a contrail that was in every image but has been
taken out of all but 1 image with photoshop.

If you look at this image closely you can see split pixels like a patch tool
has been used, or a copy and paste.

i.imgur.com...

Thats just my opinion probably not many others.

reply to post by Waratah


Not a chance, not only would I doubt the photographers ability to use photoshop (very computer illiterate, took me half an hour to explain how to post the photos to Facebook), I would not jeopardise my ATS reputation if I had even the slightest suspicion they were altered.