SKYMED4 BRIGHT FLARE
Taken by OLIVIER STAIGER on December 4, 2018 @
Chamoson, Valais , Switzerland
Click photo for larger image
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Camera Used: Canon Canon EOS 6D
Exposure Time: 30/1
Aperture: f/inf
ISO: 3200
Date Taken: 2018:12:04 17:52:38
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Details:
COSMO SKYMED 4 - BRIGHT LONG SATELLITE FLARE
On december 4 evening I was near Chamoson and took a few images with Samyang fisheye 8mm lens pointing up, camera Canon EOS 6D fullframe, hoping to catch possible meteors, while I was watching comet Wirtanen rise over the eastern horizon.
The sky was awesome. Suddenly I saw a bright thing slowly fly across the sky at zenith, roughly from north to south but slightly tilted . As bright as an average iridium flare or good ISS pass. Around mag. - 3 or so, IMHO ( brighter than Mars or Jupiter, fainter than Venus) . It appears on 3 successive images of 30 seconds exposure each, so the flare lasted well over a minute.
It could not be ISS, it could not be Iridium... So it might have been what ? Maybe a very slow meteor? as I know there are occasionnally some very slow and bright 'shooting stars'. But it appeared very symetrical in-and-out.... Or... a satellite ? I looked it up on heavens-above and... found the perfect match ! Exact same timing and same track. Bingo ! It was Cosmo Skymed 4. And Wikipedia describes those rare flares in detail, precisely what I saw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMO-SkyMed#Flares
https://www.heavens-above.com/passdetails.aspx…
https://www.heavens-above.com/gtrack.aspx…
Normal brightness of that satellite is very dim, just around mag 5 at best.
http://www.telespazio.com/programmes-programmi/cosmo-skymed
First image with annotations shows the flares' mid-point. Then a sequence of 3 images shows its motion, all images have 30 seconds shutter speed. North is down, South is up ( slight tilt ). You can even see a faint smudge where Wirtanen was rising in the East.
Note: EXIF data of photo shows time as 17:52:38 but the camera's time setting was off by about 1.5 minutes.
Photographer's website:
http://https://www.facebook.com/paparazzodelcielo/
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