Top Astronomer from Pasto Colombia Captures UFO Calls out for NASA!

Hi Folks.

First off... big technical post on telescopes warning.

I've been reading over this one since the original source seems to be quite reputable and it represents an interesting find but I'm fairly confused as to how so many people seem to be certain that the object represented within the video is 'massive'.

This is after all a simple exercise in trigonometry and what we are interested in is the area covered by the 'Field of View 'of the scope at any given distance.

If we consider the instrument generally determined to have been used in the recording we find that it is most likely to be a Meade LX200 16" mounted on a computer driven Alt-Azimuth base. (it could even be a 14" since the tube is blue and the Meade 16" glass is normally sold with a white shell, but never mind, the principle is the same)

Now...for this example we will use an eye-piece since we don't know what kind of camera was used.

I suspect, and this is purely speculation, it may not have been a starlight since the presentation resolution seems reasonable and starlight tend to be low resolution high sensitivity jobs, although the only reason anyone would have to film Antares is because it's a multiple star with low long term variability (

I'm familiar with Meade telescopes. That shown in the video is a 12" LX200R GPS. Surely this cannot be the observatory's main scope? It's too small. Maybe they use it for casual observations? Compare it with this and note the grab handles. Meade Catalog:

The scope appears as standard, mounted AltAz on a custom pier. You can't determine what camera was used. The video shows the scope fitted with standard field derotator box and little else is visible.

The AltAz mount is unusual for a professional observatory to use for the main instrument. They are normally equatorial. No serious astrophotographer would consider AltAz to be acceptable for long exposure work, even with Meade's field derotator gizmo.

Image of star is elliptical/spike? Poor set up? The apparent large size of the star image is due to 'bloat', oversaturation of CCD chip. True image is pinpoint with halo. UFO size can't be estimated from relative size of images. Depends on relative brightness of each. It could be a reflection/tracking artefact due to over exposure, note UFO shows off axis coma but the other stars don't. That's why I think it's an internal reflection artefact following the AltAz gearing shifts. And why would they make star image so bloated? You can't observe Antares like that. Nonsensical in my opinion. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose of the video.

WG3

Hi Waveguide3.

Agreed to an extent.

Honestly, i dont think its a 12"...at a guess may i postulate its a 14" since it looks a lot larger and by that i really do intend A LOT larger 'physically' than my own shiny bit of glass which is an 11" schmidt-cass.

(deception in mass being their mainstay, i honestly bought it because it was recommended as 'man portable' idiot that i was, it looked a good bit smaller in a field and my background involved straight dobsonions or long photo glass depending on your preference...)

but... yes i do agree, that cannot be the main tracker for a real observatory. It has just got to be slaved to a primary of some kind.
(maybe a 1.2 hex composite or something, i dunno, never been there.)

However, If you'll agree despite the mechanism, the image caught on film can (no matter the circumstances) be only a factor of the optics involved!

P.s. ... the whole Alt-Az thing... I honestly thought that as well since my only real interest is astrophotography and i was 'put in place' quite seriously when i was advised that Alt-Az was a mainstay for just about every real optic system. They just used their computers to adjust for polar rotation and worm errors. Hawaii being a case in point.

Side note..

No one looks at antares.
Its boring as hell and there is nothing there except the pair. (as far as we can tell)
The only reason that anyone would want to is so they can run common photometry on it. (and the best way to do that isnt to use a high gain low res camera, the best way to do that is to deliberately unfocus the object so you can get the widest possible spread across whatever sensor you have, makes it a lot easier to compare total overall emisssion* wavelengths than just staring blankly at a b/w image, b/w is only good for magnitude but no use at all for spectra)

*damnit, i cant spell... sorry

[edit on 19-1-2008 by Absence of Self]

[edit on 19-1-2008 by Absence of Self]

p.s.

Well, yes i consider your observation to be entirely valid and no more legitimate than my own so recalculating for a 12" is no problem.

After all the mathematics are not rendered invalid for a new variable...

New sums... if it is a 12" Meade LX200 the focal length of that is 3048mm.

If we take my earlier example for a 6mm eye-piece with a 40 degree FOV the scopes magnification is approx 508x with the overall width of the field of view being represented by an angle of 0.078 degrees.

At 10km this still represents a width no greater than 136 meters and 1.36km at 100km.

Now given our approximation of 5% coverage for the object covered angle this would equate to approx 65 meters at 100 km with a 40 degree eye-piece.

Entertainingly, for an object along the size of the uss enterprise barging in at around 247 meters to represent an fov of 5% we would need an overall viewing width of 4.9km

This can only be represented by a distance of 360km from the viewer.

The enterprise is a large toy but 360km is right smack in the middle of what is normally conceptualised as the upper atmosphere. (the thermospheric edge extends to about 600km and is considered to consist mostly of lone ions)

By the way if my maths are out feel free to just shoot me down and give me better. Its rather late here and I'm beginning to feel the need to fall over.

Originally posted by Absence of Self
...at a guess may i postulate its a 14"

Freeze frame the video at 44secs and note the position of the grab handles on the fork arms. Compare them closely with those in the Meade Catalog. You'll see this is the 12" model. The 14" and 16" have the lifting handles in a different position due to change in weight/balance point. The apparent larger size in the video is probably due to proximity of the camera taking these shots.

WG3

Originally posted by Zemouk
Why are you lot so obsessed with this video, you clearly are missing the point of the light reflection from the star in the first place, the light reflection moves then goes all together and the size of the object is massive. Maybe NASA writes these ones off for a reason? The reason being you can clearly see light reflection already?

Maybe because the person it's not a child with a plastic toy scope!?
This guy is a pro! Do you realy think he would not know if that was just a light reflex?!!
Sorry but the only one that looks obsessed here is you mate...with your "light reflex" phenomena that no scientist can figure untill now in first place

Originally posted by Umbra Sideralis

Originally posted by Zemouk
Why are you lot so obsessed with this video, you clearly are missing the point of the light reflection from the star in the first place, the light reflection moves then goes all together and the size of the object is massive. Maybe NASA writes these ones off for a reason? The reason being you can clearly see light reflection already?

Maybe because the person it's not a child with a plastic toy scope!?
This guy is a pro! Do you realy think he would not know if that was just a light reflex?!!
Sorry but the only one that looks obsessed here is you mate...with your "light reflex" phenomena that no scientist can figure untill now in first place

That's why the two astronomers above your post have said the same thing knowing what scope he was using? *yawn*.

Kudos and a star to WG3.



You're right, its a 12" LX200 so i retract my ideas on the 14+
Well spotted.

Even better is that with the smaller scope our hypothetical FOV increases and respectively decreases the possible distances and object scale.

Any new info on this? Or is this just a discussion of what model telescope this is? Shouldn't we be trying to identify the object and not the scope? Come on guys.