Satellite Flare in the Rosette Nebula
Taken by Rainer Baule on March 7, 2026 @
Siegen, Germany (50°52'8" N, 8°1'15'' E)
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Camera Used: Unavailable Unavailable
Exposure Time: Unavailable
Aperture: Unavailable
ISO: Unavailable
Date Taken: Unavailable
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Details:
The image shows the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237) in the constellation Monoceros with a prominent satellite flare crossing the field of view. A closer investigation using the "Stellarium" software revealed that the object was the US military satellite FIA Radar 4.
The satellite flies in an orbit of 1,107 km height. It crossed my field of view within 15 seconds. The maximum brightness was close to Venus with -4.5 mag at exactly 19:52:12 UT on March 7, 2026.
At that time, I was shooting the Rosette Nebula from my balcony under a Bortle 6 sky, taking a series of 2-minutes frames with an 80mm Apo and a ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro cooled camera with an Optolong L-eNhance duo-narrowband filter. The image shown is a composite of 105 frames without the flare plus the single frame (19:51:55 - 19:53:55) with the flare.
Details:
Object: NGC 2237 (Rosette Nebula) with a flare of NORAD 41334 (FIA Radar 4)
Instrument: 80mm refractor f/6 with 0.8 flattener (focal length 384mm), Optolong L-eNhance duo-narrowband filter (H-alpha plus O-III)
Camera: ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro Color, cooled at -10° Celsius
Exposure: 106 x 2 min (~3.5 hours total)
Processing: Astro Pixel Processor (stacking), Lightroom (denoising, gradation curve)
Photographer's website:
https://www.siegen-night-skies.de
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