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flymanwms
member
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 29
Loc: Mississippi
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I just recently purchased an Orion EON 80mm to piggyback atop my Celestron CPC1100. I set it up on Halloween night to test it out on the rising moon. While observing, I noticed a small bright meteorite-type trail zoom past the left side of the moon from top to bottom. Soon after, about 7 or 8 more zoomed by with one passing in front of the moon with a dark trail. I ran inside and grabbed my Nikon D90, focused, and recorded about 3 minutes of video. Unfortuneately there was no capture and when going back to the eyepiece there were no further events.
These objects were traveling west to east. I think I had a 24mm eyepiece with diagonal only and it took about 3 seconds for each to cross the field of view.
Is this a common occurrence or was I just lucky to witness something?
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Celestron CPC1100
Mitty wedge (CPC)
Orion EON 80mm refractor
Hyperstar 2
Meade DSI II monochrome
Meade DSI color (one-shot)
Nikon D90
http://astrophotography.ezwebplans.net/
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GlennLeDrew
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/18/08
Posts: 1304
Loc: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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The dark trail seen against the Moon suggests either a contrail or exhaust from an aircraft. With the Moon low in the sky, any aircraft at moderate to high altitude seen near it would necessarily have to be quite distant, thus rendering them irresolvable (i.e., appearing point-like), especially so if the magnification was low.
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Home-made 11X50 right angle bino, 8.1 deg. FOV
Modified 26X100 bino, 3.5 deg. FOV
Home-made Mk II RA bino, using interchangeable objectives and eyepieces
My Gallery
Mediocre minds discuss people. Good minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.
Edited by GlennLeDrew (11/03/09 12:05 AM)
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star drop
Guilty as Charged
Reged: 02/02/08
Posts: 16395
Loc: Snow Plop, WNY
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Three seconds is a long time for a meteor to cross a telescopic field of view.
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Ted
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flymanwms
member
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 29
Loc: Mississippi
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No, the one that transitted the moon didn't leave a long-lasting trail, it transitted down across the moon fast enough where there was only a split second trail behind it. All were very small, all were very fast .... maybe faster than the 3 second guess I stated earlier, but definately longer than a full second. All along my unqualified guess has been a small meteor(ite) that broke up into several pieces and was visually enhanced by the glow (and in one case, transit) of the moon. Whatever it was it was really cool to see!
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Celestron CPC1100
Mitty wedge (CPC)
Orion EON 80mm refractor
Hyperstar 2
Meade DSI II monochrome
Meade DSI color (one-shot)
Nikon D90
http://astrophotography.ezwebplans.net/
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star drop
Guilty as Charged
Reged: 02/02/08
Posts: 16395
Loc: Snow Plop, WNY
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It is possible that it was a small group of meteors if they were that fast or perhaps it was a few pieces of orbiting space junk making a reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
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Ted
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Tony Flanders
Post Laureate
Reged: 05/18/06
Posts: 3469
Loc: Cambridge, MA, USA
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Quote:
All were very small, all were very fast .... maybe faster than the 3 second guess I stated earlier, but definately longer than a full second.
Definitely not meteors, then! A meteor crosses a telescope field almost faster than you can see; certainly not more than 1/10th of a second.
I vote for birds or bats.
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Tony Flanders
First and foremost observing love: naked eye.
Second, binoculars.
Last but not least, telescopes.
And I sometimes dabble with cameras.
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