Odd object in Andromeda.....what do YOU think this might be?

[drclay]

I invite all of our ASO participants to hazard an opinion as to what the object passing through this field of view might be.

This is one of the most unusual "unexpected objects" I have seen in literally tens of thousands of images taken at ASO for astrometric measurements.  The field of view was taken on January 7 (UT of the exposure is given on the image and is based on the BEGINNING of the exposure which was 45 seconds in duration), this being centered on Near Earth Object 2000 SB1, which was magnitude 18.3 at the time.

The brightest star in this field of view is magnitude 10.1 (USNO A-2 catalog).  The exact coordinates of the center of this image are given below the image and note that NORTH is at bottom and EAST to the right on all ASO images.  The field of view is precisely 11.8 arc minutes by 7.8 arc minutes; image was acquired with the ASO_H45 astrometric 0.51m R.C. telescope at Petit Jean Mountain, coordinates roughly 93.0 degress west longiitude and 35.0 degrees north.

This trail is too small and compact to be an aircraft of any size; such would appear much larger on the image at any distance capable of aircraft flight.  Note the four distinct parallel trails and note also tha the trails fade at the end (??beginning??) near center at unequal points, as well as a distinct brightening of all along the path.

Those of you who are more adept at interpreting satellite passings are welcome to provide possible candidates.  This object does NOT have an characteristics that would be associated with a meteor, so I have ruled that out.

Your comments and inputs are welcome as always.

Dr. Clay
ASO Petit Jean Mountain

[Ron]

Doc.,

Very strange but very interesting

The only thing my SNP+ show is a satellite IRIDIUM 65

Buuuut, the time doesn't correspond to your time, about ten minutes different.   Annnnd the distance is about one degree away from your position.

Your picture looks like what I would think an Iridium Flare would look like under high magnification, but having never seem one under high magnification I'm not sure.  I have only seen a couple naked eye and they do seem to trail off like your picture.

I'll keep looking though

Ron

[ben therrell]

Gentlemen,

     O this is a real treat!

     The best guess I can venture is based on the fact that on my monitor those vectors are not precisely
straight and that suggests *tumbling*.  The speed at which it transits the field suggests *orbital distance*.

     I caught one tumbling satellite about six years ago  passing Hubble's Variable Nebula and it would flash
about every 10 - 15 seconds.  It took about a minute to cross a field about 20 arcmin. wide.   Of course they wont tumble at the same rate but the image indicates a reasonable proportion.  However four objects tumbling in a cluster is more problematic.

    Are the lines straight on your monitors or is this an artifact?

Ben

[Ron]

Interesting observation.



The Star that sits on trail; is it behind or in front of the trail?  In this cropped picture it looks like it sits in front of the trail.  The dark part of the trail is missing right at where it intersects with the Star.

I rechecked my SNP+ program and put myself at Little Rock on the 7th of Jan and ran the time through at 1 second speed all the way to the setting of Andromeda but I didn't see any Satellites passing through that location, that was after I updated my Satellites.

Ron

[drclay]

Interesting feedback and some sound ideas....
Note in Ron's enlargement that the LOWER trail has considerably more variation and skew from linear than the other three trails; this telescope produces sub arc second accuracy on images, so the motion and variation (wobble) is with the actual object and not with the resolution which is at 7.4 microns and this was a very, very steady night.

Keep 'em coming.....you gotta love this stuff.....

Dr. Clay

[ben therrell]

WELL,

     If there was no satelite to be found on that time/date we are probably looking at the remnants of
somebody's launch vehicle.  Do you suppose this has anything to do with the remnants of the Russian
system that launched the French COROT sattelite.
   
     The main booster reentered a couple of days ago and made a brilliant fireball over Denver, Co.  What's suspicious about that is that it's course was nearly N-S whereas this one is heading ESE.

Ben

[bobmoody]

Hello Dr Clay.

I've added the image as a link on our aoas.org site, and thanks for your permission to do so. We don't usually get messages about objects like this and I'm sure our members in W. AR will enjoy this.

I seem to be seeing a "wobble" or "tumbling" nature to the trails as others have mentioned. It's subtle, like the scalloped edges of Saturn's rings, and I also see the questionable foreground appearance of that star on the trails.

Will this object be coming back into view at any time in the near future? Is there enough data to calculate an orbit or trajectory? This is (at least for now) such a cool mystery.

Thanks
Bob Moody
President, AOAS
Caretaker, Coleman Observatory

[drclay]

I believe that we have found it; this following is from Bill Gray, the maker of Project
Pluto's Guide 8 sky program and Charon astrometry software:

"Hi Clay,

This looks to be the object with NORAD ID 29303, international ID
1989-039J. Some info about this is given at

http://heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.asp?satid=29303

Looks like a piece of rocket debris.

The clincher to the ID would be this: at the time, the object
should have been moving at position angle 141 degrees. If you load this
image into Charon, click the mouse on one end of the trail and drag it
to the other end (or what you can see of it in the image, anyway) and
let go, you ought to get something close to that number. (Or the
complementary angle, 321 degrees, depending on which end of the trail
you got... I think you got the start of it, since the position matches
better that way, but I could be wrong.)

-- Bill  "  END

Dr. Clay
-------------
Arkansas Sky Observatories
Harvard MPC/ H43 (Conway)
Harvard MPC/ H41 (Petit Jean Mountain)
Harvard MPC/ H45 (Petit Jean Mtn. South)

[astrogaz]

Hi All,
        This is my first reply on this forum , so Hello from England!!! May I say that at first this is a very intriguing object.
The puzzling thing is the luminance of the object it appears to be similar to that of the "field" and also the fact that a star seems to be sitting in front of the object further fuels my suspicion that this is some sort of interloper onto the chip or a part of the focal pane of the instrument, It is really quite impossible to think that this lies beyond the said star, if it were it would be enormous in diameter and very fast indeed extremely interested to find out what it might be , a cool problem

[ben therrell]

HI ASTROGAZ,

     And welcome to the group!!!

     I also see some deformations in that star.   It may be a "chip blip" or it may be a relativistic effect
similar to the "flashovers" you see sometimes when the moon occults a fairly bright star.  Recall that
almost all stellar points are spurious.  The fact that they appear to be discs is largely due to various kinds
of abberation in the lenses, mirrors, etc.

     So how about Comet 2006/P1 McNaught?  Good reports have come in from UK, Norway and in the US
from Montana and the Dakotas indicating that its visible in bright twilight.  Seen it yet?

Ben T
90.126 n 35.539     

     

[W4WMM]

Just wondering if this could be one of the those secret sats that fly in groups.

====================
Looking Up,
Alan
30.69° N   88.24° W

[astrogaz]

HI ASTROGAZ,

     And welcome to the group!!!

     I also see some deformations in that star.   It may be a "chip blip" or it may be a relativistic effect
similar to the "flashovers" you see sometimes when the moon occults a fairly bright star.  Recall that
almost all stellar points are spurious.  The fact that they appear to be discs is largely due to various kinds
of abberation in the lenses, mirrors, etc.

     So how about Comet 2006/P1 McNaught?  Good reports have come in from UK, Norway and in the US
from Montana and the Dakotas indicating that its visible in bright twilight.  Seen it yet?

Ben T
90.126 n 35.539     

     Hi Ben,
you must be joking, completely clouded out here as usual!

[Parsec]

Hi people, I'm new here.

Anyway, The more I look at this the more it seems to be a jet contrail.

Reason being; when the picture is enlarged and one plays with the contrast it is sort of evident the star is behind the trails.
There are four distinct trails, at the 'beginning' of the trails they seem to form a delta. This would agree with a delta wing aircraft.
The trails when enlarge appear to be 'fuzzy', as would contrail appear at a distance because of the turbulent vortices within them.
The trails are not perfectly linear. If you look closely there appear to be 'waves' in them. Yet another indication of contrails. Many times slight 'waves' will be observed in them due to upper level winds and differential air temperature densities.

I have taken pictures of rocket booster on the way back. What I have usually found is the photos are quite smooth and are usually not a continuos straight line but a series of 'blips'. I am assuming this is caused the boosters tumbling.

I am going to stick my neck out here and make a totally unfounded guess.
I think this is a large aircraft. Something on the order of a military C5A Galaxy observed at a distance and high altitude.

I could be completely wrong, it would not be the first time.


Cheers

Ron W

[Ron]

Welcome to the group Ron W.

Quite a coincidence we have the same first name and initial.

I tried playing around with the contrast but it still looks like the Star stays in front of the trails   I would like someone to come forward with some more explanation as to why the Star appears that way?   Ben was trying to explain it but I'm a little thick headed at most of this stuff

I still think the object needs a little more study and hopefully someone will come up with an explanation that I can understand

To me it is still a very interesting UFO

Ron

[Parsec]

Yes coincidence, we are both RWs. Like the old British comedy the two Ronnies.

Ron, I will tell you why I am thinking aircraft, and I will weigh heavely on the word thinking.
My knowledge in such matters leave a lot to be desired at best.

The enlarged picture you posted almost has indication of an object at the 'front' of the trail if one looks closly.
There appears to be a darker object than the trail.
When I was playing with the brightness, contrast and log enhancement I could bring up the brightness of the trail with out the dark area at the front. However, bringing the pictur 'up' I could eventually bring the dark area into the field.
I think this sort of indicated that there is a seperate dark object at the beginning of the field.

The trail appears to be in front of the star.The differential brightness between the trail and the star is ever so close as to be almost invisible. I have tried to 'tease' the difference out but it is almost impossible. Someone who knows what they are doing could probably acomplish it.

Ben's flashover is quite evedent using edge enhancement and very low contrast.

I'll post the image I gleened out of Dr. Clay's original. It may be self convincing or an over active imiganation but I can almost see the pixilated version of an aircraft just ahead of the trail.

However, all this being said, it is nothing more than a 'thin ice' idea on my part.

One thing for certain, I am in total agreement with you,"it is still a very interesting UFO".


Cheers
Ron