Satellite / Meteor

Hi everyone,

I just happened to take a photo of the night sky, hoping to capture the so called "supermoon". The moon was behind some houses, so I couldn't take a photo of it. I was taking a photo of the night sky, when this happened to be captured.

I am going to guess that it was a satellite or a meteor.

I then happened to see this article.

http://www.slate.com …miss_by_a_small​_rock.html

That photo was taken from the south of UK at 19:42 GMT (20:42 BST). The article talks about an asteroid at about 20:00 GMT. I guess that is just some fantastic coincidence, right?

The photo was taken with a Canon Powershot S95. Manual mode shutter length 15 seconds, ISO 80 and at the widest lens.

What you have above is a satellite . They always have a long tail streak before they flare and there is no color . Meteors will have some color .

Thank you Celestron.

If you go here: http://www.heavens-above.com/

Click the "Change your observing location" link and choose your location on the map. (Zoom in for accuracy)

Then click the "Update" button to confirm the location and go back to the home page.

You can then click "Daily predictions for brighter satellites" or "Iridium Flares" to see the satellites for your area. Once you get to that page, set the date to reflect the date you took the photo. Then you should be able to find the actual satellite you imaged, based on the time it should be passing.

My guess would be an Iridium Flare. They brighten like that due to their antennae (or sometimes their solar panels) reflecting sunlight.