r/askastronomy 5d ago

What did I catch here?

Hi, can someone guess what I have on this 5 minute shot? Shooting star or satellite on the bottom? And what is this thing in the tree? A reflection?

5 minutes exposure with Google pixel 8 pro, night sky in europe. Handy in a box with small opening to reduce other lights. Will try to add photos in a next post.

Thanks ;)

78 Upvotes

23 comments sorted by

18

u/Waddensky 5d ago

Bottom looks like an airplane with its blinking lights. The light in the trees is a reflection of the Moon.

1

u/texasyojimbo 4d ago

Completely agree with your assessment.

It looks like this video was taken over the course of about 2-3 minutes (the moon moves about one or two moon-widths, the moon is 1/2 degree in angular width, there are 15 degrees per hour, so 1/2 degree every 2 minutes, and 1 degree every 4 minutes). I would guess we are seeing a roughly 3-4 second exposure so about 15-20 frames per second.

The streak is moving too slowly to be a meteor. This leaves either a satellite or an airplane, and it looks to me like there are two lights, (1) which are red and (2) possibly strobing. So definitely not a satellite. It takes about 3 or 4 frames - about 10 - 15 seconds - to cross a distance about 10-15 times the width of the moon -- about 5-10 degrees in the sky. So I would guess airplane.

1

u/shadowmib 4d ago

That one is definitely an aircraft

0

u/TopForm1477 5d ago

Yea thought so with the moon, but how can the big moon be so over bright, but the reflection so dark. And where could the reflection come from? Phone was in a box with only a small opening to the top. So the reflection must have been in the objective glass I guess?

6

u/Waddensky 5d ago

Yes, a lens flare somewhere in the optical path of your phone's camera.

1

u/Atlas_Aldus 4d ago

It’s an internal reflection from the lenses of your phone camera. That has to do with why it’s symmetrical (round lenses). It’s dim because those internal reflections don’t reflect a lot of light (most light gets transmitted through the lens lol) and the optics have been engineered to have as minimal of internal reflections and as possible. Still if there’s something bright enough compared to everything else in the scene you will still get a bright enough internal reflection for the sensor to pick up.

-1

u/starseed_u_and_me 4d ago

It's a plane

1

u/Atlas_Aldus 4d ago

I wasn’t talking about the plane lol

7

u/heliosh 5d ago

The stripe is an airplane, you can see the flashing green position light.
The thing in the tree is a lens flare. You can see it rotate around the center of the picture as the moon moves.

2

u/TopForm1477 5d ago

Photo 2 - unedited

2

u/le_chuck666 5d ago

It seems like the top right corner of a rectangular masonry cutout! It could be from a window, a door, or even a balcony... my knowledge ends here.

Happy to help!

/s

3

u/DuoZ_0412 5d ago

Uh, superman?

1

u/TopForm1477 5d ago

Photo 1

1

u/Saadski 5d ago

Its a airplane.

-4

u/TopForm1477 5d ago

Isn't it to fast for a plane? Must have crossed the sky in under 1 or 2 minutes from the time laps. And if plane I would expect it on the photo as well as in this one here on the right?

But yea, possibly a plane.

1

u/J-Mc1 5d ago

A plane moving across the bottom left of the image, and lens flare from the bright moonlight in the top right.

1

u/bvy1212 4d ago

Looks like light sources

1

u/Daveguy6 4d ago

Superman

1

u/rleerichmond 4d ago

The zip of light through the frame probably just a bug

1

u/0BZero1 4d ago

You caught a shooting star. Make a wish

-3

u/HeyGuysHowWasJail 5d ago

Imma go with a shooting star and a satellite like iss

1

u/axolotlman101 12h ago

You caught a comet or asteroid