Posted on 09/23/2018 9:11:52 AM PDT by ETL
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory photo ambassador, a member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical skyscapes that connect Earth and the night sky. Join him here as he takes us through his photograph "An Eclipsed Moon with Mars, Milky Way with Saturn, and a Satellite near Jupiter."
Captured 15 minutes after the end of totality during the longest total lunar eclipse of the century, this scene shows the red glow of a partially eclipsed moon very close to Mars.
With the galactic core of the Milky Way, you can see Saturn above the constellation Sagittarius. Near the Milky Way's colorful, dusty arc, a flare from the Chinese Earth-observing satellite Formosat-2 (also known as Rocsat-2) passes overhead.
Not far from this satellite flare is the planet Jupiter, which glows brightly near the right edge of this wide-angle view. This single shot was captured from the town of Campinho in Portugal's Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve.
APOD ping
God is indeed awesome !
When our kids were little, we used to lie on our backs at night in the mountains counting satellites. The kids' visual acuity was great and they'd always spot them before me. We also had a fly-over of the ISS in FairPlay, CO last year. That was really spectacular.
Here's an animation of satellite flare from Wiki...
Does APOD still come out? Haven’t been pinged on that in ages.
Under the Milky Way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6jhpaX7fNQ
Ditto here. For many years I visited the site.
Probably flares from the Iridium sats are the most common.
Check out this site (linked below) for the scheduling of “Iridium Flares” in your area. You’d need to enter in your location, the more precise the better.
Some of these flares are incredibly bright, up to negative 8! However, most I think are around -2 or -3.
From their site...
“The Iridium satellites are relatively small telecommunications satellites in a low Earth orbit. They are part of a world-wide system for mobile communications operated by the Iridium LLC Corporation. When complete, there will be a total of 66 satellites in 6 orbit planes, at an altitude of around 780km.
As can be seen from the diagram opposite, each satellite has three main mission antennas (MMAs), which are flat, highly reflective surfaces, that can reflect the Sun’s rays to an observer on the ground when the geometry is correct. The satellite’s attitude is controlled so that the long axis remains vertical, with one MMA always pointing forwards.
Given this knowledge of the attitude, together with the orbital position of the satellite and the Sun and observer’s location, it is possible to calculate the angle between the direction to the observer from the satellite and the line of a perfect reflection of the Sun. This is the so-called “mirror angle” and determines the magnitude of the flare.
An Iridium Flare The photo on the right of two Iridium flares was taken by Porter Kier on January 11th, 1999. It shows Iridiums 20A (Mag. -2) and 22 (Mag. -7) above the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia area. For more information on the photo, and a full size version, just click on the image.”
Scroll down their home page to Satellites—> Iridium Flares for the scheduling. Again, enter your location first!
Beat me by under 1 min. See my previous post.
We also had a fly-over of the ISS in FairPlay, CO last year. That was really spectacular.
Wow, amazing info about the upcoming Iridium flares by geo! Right down to the fact it will be caused by the right antenna. Is it a quick glint? The site does not give duration. The next one in my area is Mag 1 whichnis rather dim, isn’t it?
I’ve got a PVS-14 night vision monocular No magnification, but some evening I’ll lay in my lawn chair (we live in the country so not much light polution) and scan the sky. You see all sorts of satellites and meteorites you’d never see otherwise.
Thanks for pointing that out. I knew something was off, but didn’t pick up on that. How weird!
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz684.htm
It is possible to get bent “glitter paths” as you see at the link above. The image on the right is a computer simulation. It would probably require a very unusual wave pattern to produce the path of the one at the top of the original post.
See my post #11 if you missed it.
That appears to be much more than a bent glitter path. The moon’s reflection is fully off 15 degrees from the straight line from camera lens to the moon.
Yep.
Is it a quick glint? The site does not give duration. The next one in my area is Mag 1 which is rather dim, isn’t it?
Yes, Mag 1 is pretty dim. They usually fade out after a few seconds. It's best figuring out best you can exactly where in the sky they will appear. Then you can watch as it gradually becomes visible.
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