Observation by Nick James: Busy skies

Uploaded by

Nick James

Observer

Nick James

Observed

2021 Aug 10 - 22:00

Uploaded

2021 Aug 11 - 11:26

Objects

Spacecraft

Equipment

Sony A7s, 85mm, f/1.2L lens

Exposure

1/25s

Location

Chelmsford, UK

Target name

Multiple LEO satellites

Title

Busy skies

About this image

I'm using a Sony A7s + 85mm FL lens in video mode to record Perseid meteors. This has a field of view of 24 x 14 deg. I have some software which looks for moving objects and, if it detects something, it dumps a stack of 31 frames (just over a second), to an image file. Normally I set the angular motion threshold quite high but if I don't do this it finds a moving object (or many) in practically every frame. This is an example of the output for a 32s period from 21:39:54 - 21:40:26. The length of these trails is consistent with satellites in LEO with an altitude of 600km or so.

The full 3 hour sequence is here. This is a lot busier than the equivalent sequence I shot two years ago.

Files associated with this observation

20210810.gif (4.1 MB)

Like this image

Dominic Ford, Andy Wilson, Callum Potter, Jeremy Shears, Ron Johnson, Jimmy Fraser, Alan Thomas, Peter Carson

Comments

Dominic Ford, 2021 Aug 11 - 12:26 UTC

This animation is amazing and also deeply worrying at the same time...

Copyright of all images and other observations submitted to the BAA remains with the owner of the work. Reproduction of work by third parties is expressly forbidden without the consent of the copyright holder. By submitting images to this online gallery, you grant the BAA permission to reproduce them in any of our publications.

Registered charity no. 210769
Registered company no. 117572

For more information including contact details, click here.

Our Terms of Use are here.

Our Privacy Policy is here.