Last night (Sunday 03 March) wasn't particularly well suited for astrophotography but after months of overcast night, I am desperate to try anything as long as the skies clear for an hour or so. So, I decided to train my Astrotracer and my smc Pentax.FA 50mm f/1.4 at Leo, the Lion.
As expected, results were a bleak so-so:
Single, unprocessed exposure: 50mm f/1.4 at ISO 250 for 20 seconds. Click to se larger version.
That is, until I scrutinized the region around star Chort (Theta Leonis) and found a short streak of light that "shouldn't" be there. I am well familiar with the tracks of satellites in low orbit, but this was shorter and thus, slower. Aligning my 11 exposures of 20 seconds each produced this (with excuses for the field rotation inaccuracies):
11 exposures as above merged and cropped.
Now I have the accurate timing from the Pentax O-GPS1, I know my focal length of 50mm, my sensor size of 23,5mm, pixel size of 0,0047mm and I can measure the lenght of the trail. Further, the line-up of specific hot pixels tells me the inclination of my camera relative to the Equator:
And thus, I find that I have an object that travels 34 degrees per hour in an orbit with an inclination of 57 degrees to the Equator.
I know very little about satellites, but the angular speed would indicate a satellite at a distance roughly 10,000 miles away if it was a satellite in a circular orbit. But could I really capture such a relatively small object at such distance?
On the other hand, if it were a natural, solar system object, the angular movement seems unusually high - and what abou the inclination of the orbit?
So, are there some knowlegable folks out there who can tell me, what this really was?!?