Satelite shadow on the moon ?

As there was a clear night tonight and a more interesting moon (not the glare of a full moon), the reasonably new 100-400 was mounted on the tripod and pointed in it's direction:

Cool catch, and good job noticing it! Looks a little like the ISS.

nice shot, looks like a bird to me.

You may be looking directly at the satelite. Definitely and "I Spy" moment. LOL!

huangyu84 wrote in post #13992619
nice shot, looks like a bird to me.

Undoubtedly you have never taken and image of the moon through a scope have you ? You wont get a bird image like that with that kind of a closeup of the moon muchless through a scope ... .

archer1960 wrote in post #13992450
Cool catch, and good job noticing it! Looks a little like the ISS.

I agree !

Here is the visibility data for the ISS for the date.

ISS -Wed Feb 29/06:54 PM- 3 minutes duration - 16degrees max elevation - 15 above SW - 10 above S Birmingham England Local Time.

It looks a little small for ISS and the wrong shape. I don't want to post someone else's picture but look here:

http://www.alexastro.c​om …Page/Articles/t​ransit.pdf

And you can find lots of others. I'm going with a bird.

Celestron wrote in post #13992658
Undoubtedly you have never taken and image of the moon through a scope have you ? You wont get a bird image like that with that kind of a closeup of the moon muchless through a scope ... .

Actually I have done some high resolution shots of lunar craters before, here's one

There is plenty of space junk and hardware floating around that can cast a shadow, or be silhouetted against the moon. I think you caught one.

Coincidentally, it could also be a Cygnus, or Whooper Swan, which have been seen at almost 30,000 feet.

According to Heavens Above the best candidates are (in terms of time) Envisat - passed over Birmingham between 19:34 & 19:37, but to the north so in the wrong direction I think, and Tiangong 1 - passed over Birmingham between 19:29 & 19:32 in the south. These are the times for visible observation so I guess by the time Tiangong 1 passed into the Earth's shadow it may have been in the right position to cross the Moon although it's track looks to be too low in the horizon to me (below 15 degrees elevation).

I'm not sure if large military satellites' details are published on the net (X-37B is on Heavens Above) so it could be one of those I suppose. It would be interesting to work out roughtly where in the sky this was based on the Moon's position at the time and the rough dimesnions of it (it looks a bit of a beast).

whatever it is, its a cool catch anyways

cheers

Thanks for the favourable comments and an interesting discussion.

As for the; is it a bird, is it a plane, I'll settle for an UOO (Un-identified Orbiting Object )

The link to the guys that strive to capture a passing satelite was interesting, although I'll just put mine down to luck - I think I'll buy a lottery ticket this weekend.

Regards
Lawrence

Just to be pedantic, it's a silhouette not a shadow.

Celestron wrote in post #13992658
Undoubtedly you have never taken and image of the moon through a scope have you ? You wont get a bird image like that with that kind of a closeup of the moon muchless through a scope ... .

I have, thousands of times, and it's a bird.