Took a couple of long exposure on dartmoor this evening:

Reviewing this one I noticed something a bit odd.

30s exposure, 30 dots. Something flashing white at 1Hz? A plane would be coloured I think?

Looking due east at about 9pm.

What camera?

flying sheep

RX100. mk3

Satellite

aye it’s a satellite, look up at the sky long enough, in a dark sky park, and you’ll see loads of them with the naked aye.

Yeah, but not blinking.

Intereresting. You can see some ‘smearing’ on the stars, and in the right direction too- so the long exposure is working ok.

I dont know. I cant think why anything out there would be in sync with this. Is this a compound shot?

Plane.

It could be a booster casing rotating giving a series of 1hz flashes.

Looks like a post with some lights on it.

Plane with anti-colision lights (most likely the white strobes) flashing. I’ve caught similar images using my camera on long exposure.

Or possibly it’s a piece of rotating space junk that’s catching the light as it spins…depends on the orbit of course and if you are looking west, so it will catch the sun that’s below the horizon.

space junk would be less likely.
rocket boosters certainly do have oscillating varying brightness, but not really an on-off kind of light. the ones i’ve seen also need binoculars to see, and not so well synchronised to 1Hz.
i’d say either a plane, or aliens.

Are you sure it’s not an artefact of the way your camera does long exposures?

Btw- look closely at the pic and there are smaller, dimmer, dots in between making a total of ~60.

It’s likely that the flashes are over-exposed, so you probably won’t see any colour.

This was a plane:

its a plane, i see similar artifacts all the time in my astro photos.

A baby Robin?

Satellites have loads of reflective surfaces that can catch the sunlight. Google “Iridium Flares” for more info.

I see them all the time through Dobby, my Newtonian telescope.

🙂

It’s a plane, satellites make a solid line

SANTA!

I’d come to that conclusion. for a start its a straight line. a satellite would be in an arc.

Looks like a post with some lights on it.

Bloody big post, you wouldn’t want it in the middle of your garden, that’s for sure!
That’ll be the North Hessary Tor radio mast at Princetown. Like the Mendip transmitter mast that sits above Wells and Glastonbury, the marker lights show up for miles around, you can see the Mendip mast with the naked eye from high ground in North Wiltshire and its lights with binoculars.

It’s a plane. Their blinking lights are white. Are they so common you haven’t noticed this?