Travis Tracey
Obed WSR, Dark Sky Park in Tennessee
03/26/2023
06:05 am

Equipment Details:

Canon 80D, Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8, 15s exp @ 17mm f/2.8, 4000iso, WB@4000

Post-processing Details:

none, SOOC

Image Details:

What did you see??? I have spent 6 years shooting the night sky and have seen and captured my share of planes, satellites and meteors but I was photographing panorama of the Milky Way this weekend when I moved to the final image facing northeast toward Cassiopeia, started the exposure and looked up to say 'wow a meteor!!'.. or so I thought. After a second, it didn't disappear and seemed barely moving. I was taking 15-second long exposures and took 6 photos following this one until it went behind the tree branches in the foreground its pointed toward. It did not change its appearance before fading away into the horizon, did not get brighter or dim any that I noticed. It was just after 6am and already seen several satellites pass over but I've never seen anything like this.. how it looks in this photo is how I saw it, just a little smaller. Through my eyes and at arms length, it looked about 1.5-2 inches long, pointed at both ends, gapless and very bright, like a meteor's light froze in our atmosphere and drifted away with the clouds.. I was in awe.. and completely baffled. What did I witness?? Can satellites appear as a solid streak of light for almost 2 minutes? Can a meteors light freeze? :) keep looking up!

Posted 
January 20, 2019
 in 

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