Erm... caught a satellite?

Photos by Drone
1

Need some insight here.

I thought t would be fun to take the drone up and point it at the stars, with maximum settings to capture light. My naked eye saw the Plough and Orions belt. It was clear and a nice sky.

I took some photos that were black on the device, but knew I would then come in and play with the editor. This cropped up without any editing:

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I then literally flicked a few dials on the editor to produce the below.

Tell me I haven’t actually caught a satellite or the space station??? I only popped out for a 3 min sky look to see what would happen.

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7 Likes
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Im not so sure. Everyone knows that anything in the sky that cant immediately identified is a drone up to no good :grin:

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What time was this?

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About an hour or so ago

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Honestly, just pointed at a black screen and shot for a laugh. Came in and saw that.

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I guess I should mention all the stars that I haven’t seen before! I am def going to try this more. Amazing result - stars in abundance.

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A bit more accurately? … within 10 mins?

The files on the SD card are time-stamped - that will tell you.

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You’ll catch them quite often with the naked eye…

Although I used to love capturing the ISS when i was previously using DSLR’s. :slightly_smiling_face:

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23:37 it says. And I was looking South West ish.

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Well - despite it looking a little like the ISS … at that time it was about as far from being visible from the UK as it’s possible to be …

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Nothing else in that position, relative to Orion, that would have been “ISS shaped” like this …

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I have no knowledge of what’s up there but from pictures i have seen, it looks like a communication satellite. Saying that Geostationary orbit is 22000 miles out.

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Russian spy satellite :face_with_monocle:

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So its all a bit odd then

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On a longish exposure, the low orbit satellites (GPS / Starlink / etc) would be a single dot source (they are small) creating a thin line … the length of the line depending on the length of the exposure.

A bit like the ISS in this pic I tool some time back …

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the hubble telescope orbits at 340 miles

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Screenshot 2024-12-03 10.46.50
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5000 satellites in low earth orbit

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I checked the Stellarium and went back to the exact time which was actuallt 23:25:37. It showed it as a starlink satellite.

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So - the time changed somehow? :man_shrugging:

It will be impossible to see at that date/time.

They can only be seen when reflecting sunlight and at that date/time a Starlink satellite in that location will be completely within the earths shadow, making it impossible to see.