USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery (Steve Lantz)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 41 the01 Ori · 42 c Ori · 43 the02 Ori · 44 iot Ori · 45 Ori · De Mairan's nebula · Great Nebula in Orion · Hatysa · M 42 · M 43 · NGC 1973 · NGC 1975 · NGC 1976 · NGC 1977 · NGC 1980 · NGC 1981 · NGC 1982 · Sh2-279 · Sh2-281 · The star 42Ori · The star 45Ori · The star θ1Ori · The star θ2Ori · The star ιOri

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USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

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USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

So, I was out last night collecting LRGB images for M42 and in one series of ten 15-second images through the green filter, I observed short streaks of light moving across the sky from frame to frame (each streak was a 15-s capture of an object's motion against the stars). I had never seen anything quite like this, and I'm still unsure of what they were. To see if they could be satellites, I did some measuring and calculating and came up with a rough estimate of the objects' angular speed, which turned out to be about 0.08 degrees/sec. I also calculated the angular speed a satellite would have in a low orbit with an altitude of 200 km and got a result of 0.07 degrees/s. I was surprised that the angular speed would be so low because I just couldn't believe that each 15-s streak would be so short in a telescopic field. But, voila, the two speeds match up quite well. My best guess is that these are Starlink satellites from a recent Space X launch. Crazy! Anyway, I posted an animated GIF of the ten frames!

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3180167
PixInsight job	47KOSODBLN63M4VPUIG7GKS5K0RKMNYV
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	05h35m23s.71
RA (top/left)	05h31m16s.30
RA (top/right)	05h34m56s.22
RA (bottom/right)	05h39m31s.97
RA (bottom/left)	05h35m51s.15

Dec (center)	-05°29′04″.1
Dec (top/left)	-04°57′19″.8
Dec (top/right)	-06°38′03″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	-06°00′42″.9
Dec (bottom/left)	-04°20′03″.8

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USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

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USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

USO (unidentified space objects) Mystery

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