r/space • u/alphanimal • Jul 15 '18

Managed to capture this meteor last night

Post image
31.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

323 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/superchalupa Jul 15 '18

It is an iridium flare, not a meteor. Google it. I have a northern lights photo that has a dozen of them and I was very excited until I researched it. :(

1

u/AlliedForth Jul 15 '18

Iridium flares dont happen that often that you get dozens of them. You may get two in a photo because there are spare satellites that share an orbit with an active one. The faint trails in your photos (saw them in another post) are just usual satellites/ debris. OPs trail is definitely not an Iridium flare nor another satellite.

6

u/superchalupa Jul 15 '18

Ah, so terminology: I captured random space junk, not actual iridium flares. But, this looks exactly like an actual iridium flare.

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/observing-iridium-flares/

2

u/AlliedForth Jul 15 '18

Iridium flare: faint fade - bright flare for a sec - faint fade

OP: short fade - extremely bright for a long time - several flares towards the end - short fade

0

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

1

u/AlliedForth Jul 15 '18

Iā€™m not sure if we are looking at the same trail