Light Pollution: The Orion Belt (processed, 4-Sec. Exposure) with a Satellite / Space Junk Trail.

My nephew Mohammed assisted me in capturing this image :-)

This image of the belt & nebula region in the constellation Orion was shot shortly after the previous image, and it shows what appears to be a satellite trail. Actually, that trail belongs to "Atlas Centaur 2", a derelict rocket body launched in November 1963 just days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

The picture was shot with a Panasonic Lumix GF1 coupled to a Leica-M 90mm Summicron lens at F/2. The whole setup was mounted on a stationary tripod. Compare this image to the one taken during the same setting but with a different exposure. While this exposure shows fainter stars more clearly, it does start to demonstrate the effect of trailing as the static camera didn't allow for sidereal tracking.

The 4-seconds long exposure was made while the moon was full, and it processed to reduce the effects of light pollution.

The web site: www.heavens-above.com/ was used to make the satellite viewing prediction.

On the next day, an animation was made from seperate images taken of the object again crossing across Orion. The footage appears here:
www.flickr.com/photos/26654815@N08/5543989820/

More information about the rocket may be found here:
space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/atlas_centaur.htm

Taken on: March 19, 2011

Tags:

Orion

Space Junk

Atlas-Centaur « less

Groups appears in: • Night Sky Observations

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