During my imaging of M109 on 8 April 2008 I captured two UFOs. The question is "What are they?". There would seem to be three possibilities:
1. Aircraft
2. Spacecraft
3. Meteors.
I think aircraft can be eliminated. I do live near an airport, but there is generally little activity around 0300 when these two pictures were taken, and aircraft usually have three lights one of which is flashing. There is no indication of either. There are plenty of satellites around but I have never caught one before in such a small field of view (about 26 by 20 arc-minutes), so to catch two seems unreasonably lucky. Also at this time most such satellites passing overhead would be in darkness (the telescope was pointing at approximately 52° elevation at 298° azimuth at the time). Meteors are always possible; I have failed to capture them with wide-angle pictures during periods of high activity, so it seems very fortuitous to catch two in such a small field within about 45 minutes. If they are meteors and if they are related (two big ifs), then the radiant is almost within the frames as can be seen from a superposition of the two.
Date and Time: 8th April 2007 02:48 UT
Camera: MX716
Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer
Capture: Single frame, exposure 5 minutes
Processing: None.
Date and Time: 8th April 2007 03:29 UT
Camera: MX716
Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer
Capture: Single frame, exposure 5 minutes
Processing: None.
The above two images superimposed.
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