What are my streaks?
Jul 31, 2019 21:20:34 #
How do you tell if it is plane, space station, meteor?
Jul 31, 2019 22:10:56 #
wmurnahan wrote:
How do you tell if it is plane, space station, meteor?
With #1 it appears as separate dashes- therefore is most likely an aircraft. #2 is solid line expanding as it gets closer to the earth - likely a meteor.
Jul 31, 2019 22:11:00 #
I'm certainly no authority but will take a stab at answering part of the question ... usually planes will show up as straight lines of light with periodic bright spots where the navigation lights blinked. My experience is those are generally pretty easy to spot. I didn't happen to see any of those in your photos.
A satellite will show up as a straight, steady streak of light, similar to the 1 in the center of the 1st photo. But I've also seen a meteor look quite similar, e.g., I saw it flash while the shutter was open & then looked at what was captured on the sensor. However, I have taken shots in which I didn't see it with the naked eye, but on the image, there was what I thought might a meteor which seemed to get brighter or flare toward the end of the streak of light. It isn't clear to me, but I would point to one such small "streak" in the 2nd photo, half way between the center of the shot & the left side. Unfortunately, it isn't as clear to my old eyes for me to be certain.
Hope that at least starts to get a discussion going. It's a great question & I'd love to hear what more experienced shooters think.
A satellite will show up as a straight, steady streak of light, similar to the 1 in the center of the 1st photo. But I've also seen a meteor look quite similar, e.g., I saw it flash while the shutter was open & then looked at what was captured on the sensor. However, I have taken shots in which I didn't see it with the naked eye, but on the image, there was what I thought might a meteor which seemed to get brighter or flare toward the end of the streak of light. It isn't clear to me, but I would point to one such small "streak" in the 2nd photo, half way between the center of the shot & the left side. Unfortunately, it isn't as clear to my old eyes for me to be certain.
Hope that at least starts to get a discussion going. It's a great question & I'd love to hear what more experienced shooters think.
Aug 1, 2019 07:55:20 #
The ISS should follow the same angle across the sky each orbit. The actual track will be in another part of the sky, east or west of the previous track. NASA should have tracking info available to confirm if you captured the ISS given your location and time you captured that image.
Aug 1, 2019 15:50:26 #
Satellites are everywhere and so are commercial aircraft and I remove them from my images in processing . How long was your exposure?
Aug 1, 2019 16:38:44 #
stepping beyond wrote:
Satellites are everywhere and so are commercial aircraft and I remove them from my images in processing . How long was your exposure?
25 sec
Aug 1, 2019 16:44:53 #
I'd bet it's one or the other that I mentioned , the ISS is constantly traveling NE to SE from my neck of the woods. Nice shot though !
Aug 2, 2019 16:55:05 #
wmurnahan wrote:
How do you tell if it is plane, space station, meteor?
Image #1 looks like a satellite since it is constant brightness along its track.
Image #2 looks like a meteor since it starts out faint and finishes in a bright finale. Of course, your shutter may close before it's finale.
A plane usually has a blinking light, and may display parallel streaks unless it is so high that they are not resolved.
Aug 2, 2019 21:14:47 #
Last sunday night, July 28, I was west of Grand Junction, CO, looking for meteors from the Delta Aquariids Meteor Show that peaked last Sunday. In it you can see the flashing light of an airliner and a couple of streaks in the lower right corner that I believe are meteors.
The glow at the bottom of the frame are the lights of Moab, UT.
The glow at the bottom of the frame are the lights of Moab, UT.
Aug 2, 2019 21:27:43 #
I've gotten shot of the ISS when I knew it was going to be overhead, this shot I got on vacation, just shooting the milky way, but I do think I just happen to get it. I've captured some planes before and I didn't think the other one was an airplane, I did think it was a meteor, just didn't know for sure since I've never caught one. Got to looking at another shot and I think I got a meteor in it.
Aug 2, 2019 21:38:30 #
Aug 3, 2019 18:13:27 #
Mojaveflyer wrote:
Last sunday night, July 28, I was west of Grand Junction, CO, looking for meteors from the Delta Aquariids Meteor Show that peaked last Sunday. In it you can see the flashing light of an airliner and a couple of streaks in the lower right corner that I believe are meteors.
The glow at the bottom of the frame are the lights of Moab, UT.
The glow at the bottom of the frame are the lights of Moab, UT.
The ones in the lower right are not meteors. They are constant brightness. And all the same length. They are likely satellites. But could be planes so far away that you don't see the blinking.
Aug 6, 2019 19:52:53 #
I see a satellite in the first picture.
But it is possibly a meteor, but I doubt that do to the length of the continuous streak.
The reason Satellites give a constant streak is because they are reflecting the Sun. The ISS does the same in my experience.
Airplanes always have given a broken image because what the camera captures is the marker lights, and the strobes that Identify them to other aircraft. Even color dots due to the marker lights.
I love doing time lapse sequences, and the night skies are ripe for building thousands and thousands of images to lace together and make video from.
I tried and tried to catch the ISS. Then, without even trying, I got a perfect set of a few images to tie together. I verified it by checking against Stellarium and Yup, the ISS.
https://youtu.be/q0g8NtinLtk
In August 2015, I joined a fellow hog to observe the annual Perseid Meteor Showers. I simply set my Camera on my tripod with my timed release control running it, and just let it run all night.
I got many airplanes in the images. But further looking found I had also gotten individual Perseid Meteors.
But the aircraft leaves long blinking trails, Satellites leave straight appearing white streaks, and the Perseid's were individual frames. Here is the results of that night.
https://youtu.be/O5hf0szmKVE
And one night taking images for a Star Trails video, I was fraught with many airplanes, and some satellites, as well as plenty of Stars of course.
https://youtu.be/fWlD_acJKVg
But it is possibly a meteor, but I doubt that do to the length of the continuous streak.
The reason Satellites give a constant streak is because they are reflecting the Sun. The ISS does the same in my experience.
Airplanes always have given a broken image because what the camera captures is the marker lights, and the strobes that Identify them to other aircraft. Even color dots due to the marker lights.
I love doing time lapse sequences, and the night skies are ripe for building thousands and thousands of images to lace together and make video from.
I tried and tried to catch the ISS. Then, without even trying, I got a perfect set of a few images to tie together. I verified it by checking against Stellarium and Yup, the ISS.
https://youtu.be/q0g8NtinLtk
In August 2015, I joined a fellow hog to observe the annual Perseid Meteor Showers. I simply set my Camera on my tripod with my timed release control running it, and just let it run all night.
I got many airplanes in the images. But further looking found I had also gotten individual Perseid Meteors.
But the aircraft leaves long blinking trails, Satellites leave straight appearing white streaks, and the Perseid's were individual frames. Here is the results of that night.
https://youtu.be/O5hf0szmKVE
And one night taking images for a Star Trails video, I was fraught with many airplanes, and some satellites, as well as plenty of Stars of course.
https://youtu.be/fWlD_acJKVg
Aug 18, 2019 08:40:34 #
wmurnahan wrote:
How do you tell if it is plane, space station, meteor?
No. 1 is a man-made object. It's constant in brightness.
No. 2 is a meteorite. It's brighter at the beginning of the final entry.
Aug 18, 2019 23:41:23 #
wmurnahan wrote:
How do you tell if it is plane, space station, meteor?
I am adding an image of a meteor for you to look at. This one shows some color. Color is very common in meteors as they burn up. This exposure was 15 sec and the meteor must have burned up rather quickly since the trail is short. This was a 24mm lens on a full frame body.
I have others that are much longer trails which change this trail thickness as to goes across the sky.
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