Nightspore Posted December 1, 2019 Share Posted December 1, 2019 I was observing the Moon with my 90mm Orion Maksutov and a 14mm Bresser 60º ‘Plossl’. This gave me 89x for 40 arc minutes, 27 seconds of TFOV. I am 186 metres above mean sea level. I’m not sure exactly when, but sometime between 17:00 and 17:15 GMT, an object passed at a diagonal angle directly in front of the Moon. It was in the lunar southern area travelling towards the south east. It can’t be the ISS as SkySafari has just (18:12 GMT) informed me the ISS is rising as I am writing this. Unless my Nexus 7 tablet or SkySafari is still stuck in daylight saving time for some reason. The object was angular and large. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an owl lol. I remember it moving over Petavius in a purposeful straight line as it passed in front of the Moon. Very much like an artificial satellite. The impression as it rapidly passed was of a box kite. There seemed to be some detail, or at least dark and light hues, which I would imagine were solar panels. I’m not sure what this object was, but I’m going with either the ISS or a Borg Cube (I've more or less ruled out a high altitude box kite lol). +RonC 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted December 1, 2019 Share Posted December 1, 2019 Angular and large ? Could it be Elon Musks Tesla Roadster........? 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 2, 2019 Author Share Posted December 2, 2019 2 hours ago, Bino-viewer said: Angular and large ? Could it be Elon Musks Tesla Roadster........? 😉 Do you think if I wish hard enough it will re-enter and fall on him? It's only a modified Lotus anyway isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 2, 2019 Author Share Posted December 2, 2019 The mystery may be solved. Apparently the ISS makes a couple of passes every 75 minutes or so. SkySafari only alerts you when it thinks it's dark enough where you live to observe it. I must have seen the first pass. +Bino-viewer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 2, 2019 Author Share Posted December 2, 2019 This is now the most likely candidate. Stellarium running on Ubuntu comes to the rescue. I've been running Stellarium for over a decade and it still delivers. The time, direction, and angle it crossed the Moon all match. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1989-080A Old Soviet technology that slightly resembles a Borg Cube crossed with a box kite. +Bino-viewer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted December 3, 2019 Share Posted December 3, 2019 It looks Russian doesn't it ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 3, 2019 Author Share Posted December 3, 2019 5 hours ago, Bino-viewer said: It looks Russian doesn't it ?? Yeah, it does look like you'd expect old CCCP space technology would. I still can't believe I could see the solar panel arrays with a 90mm Mak. I told you they were good! +Bino-viewer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 3, 2019 Author Share Posted December 3, 2019 In fact I was using that very 14mm Bresser shown in the picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightspore Posted December 4, 2019 Author Share Posted December 4, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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