What is this thing ?

Eric Gagne

Hey Adam,

In the 1.5 years or so that I have been doing astrophotography I have never seen this.  These are 60 seconds shots from a Bortle 1/2 site.  For 3 or 4 minutes (only 2 shown here) after the passage of a satellite this brownish structure appeared on the left hand side, fading from 1 image to the next.  Have you ever seen something like it ? Do you know what this is ?   It seems to me that it would be a very strange coincidence if it was not caused by the satellite.   

Note:  I always pretty much shot nebulae with dual NB filters.  This is my first ever galaxy and pretty much first experience with just a UV/IR Cut filter so maybe it's not as rare or unusual as I think.

In any case, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on this.

BlockHead

Wow... Well... it could be a "water" dump from some mission. 

But actually.. this looks like a meteor trail (left behind afterglow). It is what I first thought it was. 

Not certain though. We are nearing the Geminids...so maybe?

-the Blockhead

Eric Gagne

I didn’t think of a meteor. I had no idea they could leave such a prominent trail. I just assumed it was a satellite.

Tomorrow I will stack and stretch those 4-5 shots to get a better view.

TBH I much prefer the meteor afterglow option than the “water” dump

BlockHead

It so happens I show a trail like this in a video I made.

(look at the top left of this video)

That "cloud" after the meteor is what you may have captured.

-the Blockhead

Eric Gagne

It does indeed look very similar to what I captured and I think you're correct.  What I picked is a meteor cloud.

Thank you Adam.   

Eric Gagne

Hey Adam,

Since you helped me understand what this was, I thought maybe you'd like to see this animated GIF I made from the subs.

BlockHead

Awesome! It appears you missed the meteor itself. 

still...nice!

-the Blockhead