Ufos Passing Infront of the Moon Right Now!!

I urge everyone with a telescope to look at the moon with a 25mm lense right now!

Ive seen 7 ufos in a matter of 10 minutes, moving very fast. Keep looking!

I live in California.

Satellites? What makes them UFO's are they making right hand turns? I urge you to put some more detail into your post before making people run out for nothing no?

I'm LATE!!!!

I'm so mad right now.

For future reference, I've got a Meade ETX 90. I've seen something similar with it before. I was watching from Balboa Park in San Diego the night that we sent a probe crashing into the moon last summer (could have been fall, this is California...)

I saw the spaceship (Earth probe, so it was identified) pass in front of the moon before impact. I don't think I saw the impact, but I can't be sure. I thought for a moment I did, but I think it was in my head.

To be specific, I don't really think I saw the craft, I did however see a clear outline (sillouette sp?) passing over the surface of the moon.

In my scope, with the highest power lense and the barlow, I can see about a quarter of the moon at once. I've got the equipment to see something if it's there. I'm sorry I wasn't on ATS 2 hours ago.

Anyway, I'm logging off for the night and setting up my scope
I'll let you know if I see anything.

Lizard King, what kind of scope are you using?

-WFA

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In regards to atsguy_106's post, a group of objects is anamolous in and of itself. Satellites (while sometimes traversing similar orbits) don't travel in packs. Also, with a decent telescope, as I said above, the moon's surface is clearly visible. The moon is after all only 250,000 miles away (approximately). That's a quarter of a million miles. Basically, it's easy viewing.

-WFA

NOT my night.

I just typed out a really good post and then lost it. Oh well.
Anyway, the gist of it was, that I didn't see anything, and I watched from about 10:15-11:15. Anyway, I also mentioned 'moon-burn' from watching the moon for too long without looking away, and talked about watching in teams so that one person can always be resting their eyes.

So then I talked about how cool Amatuer Astronomy clubs are (they're free too) and how many major cities have meetings once a month, where the members bring out their scopes to a park or central area for people to look through.

Anyway, I finally talked about how to build your own telescope, it's totally easy, although I'd recommend buying the mirror(s). Under $100 will get you a good primary and secondary, and you can make an eyepiece out of a disposable camera. Under $50 more will build the rest of your scope. (That's the budget when I did it several years ago)

Here's a good site to get anyone who is interested on building their own scope started. The math is easy, anyone who wants to can build one of these.

members.aol.com...

My Meade ETX 90 cost around $700.00 USD, and high end large diameter reflectors can cost up to the 100's of 1000's.

Happy viewing! There's some really interesting stuff out there to see

-WFA

I call HOAX on this one. I just looked and didn't see a damned thing!

Satellites often cross the Moon's disc. You can make predictions using custom software which is freely available. Many people await transits of the ISS and occasionally the Shuttle and take images of the event. They also transit the Sun of course. Capturing them using a scope and CCD camera is a tricky job. The ISS crosses the diameter of the Moon/Sun in about half a second. Sometimes it just clips across the edge, so timings are even shorter. And of course, the Moon is shifting all the while due to the Earth's rotation, so it's usual to drive the scope to compensate. Here's a typical image.

ISS Moon transit

There are also lots of geostationary/geosynchronous satellites located in the equatorial belt region. This passes very close to the Orion constellation, so people often see objects floating across that area. If the Moon happens to be near the equatorial belt, the transit of several satellites in a short time is perfectly feasible. You can also get predictions for the major planets using a these free programs. You have to plug in the NORAD 2-line orbital elements of the satellites and the software pumps out the predictions for your location.

As to seeing a spacecraft actually orbiting the moon or hitting the surface, that's not possible with amateur telescopes. At lunar distances, these scopes will only resolve details several kilometers across, so seing something like a moon probe is impossible. However, when objects crash into the lunar surface, they often create a flash which can be seen from Earth. There are regular flashes seen on the dark side during annual meteor showers, but a sporadic meteor may crash at any time. There are movies of these events available on the NASA sites.

WG3

reply to post by The Lizard King


Here are a couple of sights that may help you determine what you saw. You just need to enter your location then you can see if there were any visible passes of satellites, iss, atv, etc.. At least that way you can rule them in or rule them out. I agree w/ atsguy to include more details so that others can help you understand what you may have seen.

Heavens Above

and

Nasa Space Flight

Hoax? Hah.

The reason why I posted with little information, is because I was in a hurry to go back outside and keep watching.

I seen several black balls whizzing from left to right, infront of the moon. At first I thought, eh, could be anything, maybe birds. But then, I seen a bird and realized that they werent birds and the things I was watching were way closer to the moon, because the one bird I had seen was really big compared to them.

They were black balls, moving at extremely high speeds, approximatley 11 of them, not sure.

I have an Orion space probe 130eq. I was using a 25mm lense with a moon filter, so I didn't get "moon burn"

Nice scope! Looks like we've got similar views, but I think yours might be a bit better. Do you have the wide lens? Mind if I ask about how much they sell for?

My eyepieces are old Plossl's and they're not filtered. I've got a filtered lens also, but it isn't nearly as powerful, so I hardly use it unless I'm trying to locate an object like Saturn before I 'zoom in' with a higher power eyepiece.

Anyway, it's too bad I came to late to enjoy the show this time around. I appreciate your posting though, and if I happen to see anything similar I'll be sure to do the same.

-WFA

I'd love to get a rig set up here with a camera attached etc. It's just so damned windy here all the time, keeping it focused on anything would prove to be a nightmare. I envy you guys. Good luck catching something

Hi there TXRabbit. I've experienced wind problems before.
I currently use a rectangular fence to screen it out, up on my balcony/patio of my apartment. The fence only needs to be about 5 or 6 feet tall to block your wind if you view while sitting on a stool or small chair.

I remember making telescopes on the street in the bronx so the kids in the neighborhood could see how it was done. It can be done on the cheap, just google search 'dobsonian' or 'build your own reflector'.

But don't worry, as soon as I can afford it I'll be adding a camera to my mount, and I'll post anything relevent here anyway!

-WFA

Originally posted by TXRabbit
I'd love to get a rig set up here with a camera attached etc.

It's really quite easy, assuming you've got a scope to fix the camera to. The most cost effective CCD camera is a webcam. One of the best for telescopic use is the Philips ToUcam 840 Pro, which has been superceded by the SPC900NC. Both are equivalent electronically speaking and use the same chip. You simply remove the camera's screw-in lens unit and replace that with an adapter to fit the scope eyepiece tube (typically 1.25" diameter). The adapter should be fitted with an IR filter. You can see the reflection off the original IR filter in the photo. Here's the kit I use.



This is the 840 Pro which has been upgraded to the latest specs using an EEPROM firmware hack. The SPC900NC can be adapted to produce uncompressed RAW files.

Here's a shot of the camera attached to my LX200. This one's a 10 inch



Webcams give the same results as a 5-6mm eyepiece, so pretty powerful. In fact too powerful for Moon shooting. You really need a focal reducer to shorten the focal length of the scope. You can see an f6.3 unit between the eyepiece tube and the mirror backplate. This gives something like 200x power on my system, still pretty big. Only small bits of the Moon will fit on the chip at this magnification. Here's the Moon at around 200x. It's a little blurred due to atmospheric turbulence. It was an early evening shot in the summertime.



Webcams are great for Moon closeups as well as images of the planets. You can get superb images of Saturn and Jupiter using a simple webcam.

For deep sky objects you need a more sensitve camera like the SBIG, StarlightExpress or DSI range made by Meade. I recently got into this when Meade started selling off their DSIs at more or less garage sale prices. Here's my first try at an 'invisible' nebula using the DSI color camera. This image is a stack of around 250x8 second exposures using the Meade Envisage software. Tracking was unguided.



This is the famous Ring Nebula in Lyra (M57).

Here's another of the famous Comet 17P Holmes, which exploded to sun-like proportions last year.



Tracking moving targets is very difficult. This is why there are few if any good telescopic movies of UFOs. Here's my first (and only) attempt at capturing the ISS as it hurtles across the sky.

My ISS Video

Capturing the transit of a satellite (or a UFO) across the Moon's disc is exceedingly difficult. Even watching the event through a telescope really needs a low power setup. Anything above about 50-80x will lose sight very quickly.

WG3

WG3

What an amazing post Waveguide3! You've got a great setup there. I've always been hesitant to use a basic webcam, and it pleases me that the method has your seal of approval. I'd been saving for a nice digital 35mm.

Quick question, did you make your own adapter for the cam to the back of the scope? Did you buy one?

And also the IR filter, how much does that usually run?

That's the only part I'm unclear on. My local telescope dealer sells an adapter for a 35mm (the e ring? one of the outer lense rings screws into the adapter, which screws into the back of my scope), but it's like $60 just for the adapter.

Will a webcam work with a 'build your own' adapter? Just curious...
By the way, I'm using a Meade ETX 90, if that helps (TOTALLY JEALOUS of your 10 incher!) My mirror is about 4.5 inches, and with my high power eye piece and barlow I max out the resolution of the little thing. I like it for it's portability though.

Thanks for your help, it's nice to run across someone also interested in this sort of thing

-WFA

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar I'd been saving for a nice digital 35mm.

35mm CCD cameras produce superb wide field images. It's really a question of what you want to image. The ultimate kit is one of everything.

Quick question, did you make your own adapter for the cam to the back of the scope? Did you buy one?

I bought it. There are many outfits making and selling these, so DIY isn't worth the effort (unless you happen to have a lathe in your workshop). The adapters come either with or without the IR filter. Mine did and cost around $40 three years ago. They are also made to take conventional size (1.25") screw-in filters at the front, so an IR could be fitted there.

And also the IR filter, how much does that usually run?

Dunno quite honestly, but not much in terms of optical gear. Prices vary according to quality. I'd have though $20-$40 as a broad guess.

That's the only part I'm unclear on. My local telescope dealer sells an adapter for a 35mm (the e ring? one of the outer lense rings screws into the adapter, which screws into the back of my scope), but it's like $60 just for the adapter.

It'll be a bigger unit for a 35mm camera body, but these things are never really cheap.

Will a webcam work with a 'build your own' adapter?

Don't see why not. My first Newtonion scope was entirely hand made. That included the mirror (a 6" diameter f.8 paraboloid) as well as the oblique ellipse diagonal. These were also silvered the traditional way using silver nitrate and glucose (I worked in a lab at the time). I didn't make the eyepieces or the focusser but everything else, including equatorial mount and the electric drive/gearbox system, was hand made. Oddly enough, I didn't have a lathe. Anything like that was done by friends of friends in the workshop.

I made various types of camera adapters from plastic tubing and got pretty good photos using a 35mm SLR film camera. I used both prime focus and eyepiece projection as well as afocal projection.

WG3

[edit on 24-3-2008 by waveguide3]

Excellent! Thanks for answering my questions

I'm very impressed that you made your own mirrors. I made my own 4.5 inch reflector years ago (no electronic mount though, I used an old record sandwiched in felt, to pivot the mount on the base, and tracked manually). I didn't make my mirrors though. I lived in a tiny apartment in the bronx then, and didn't have the space to set up a good grinding rig.

But since we're on the topic, I did do a lot of research on grinding your own mirrors, and if TXRabbit or anyone else reading this thread is interested, it can be done if you've got some space to work in. There are rigs that you can build that will turn the plates correctly, and the equipment is fairly cheap. The glass plates are widely available (I think their called 'blanks') and the grit is easy to come by.

I understand this process takes a lot of grinding time though, unless you've got a machine, and polishing the mirrors, as you describe also requires a bit of a 'lab' or workshop.

Anyway, thinking about all of this again has me excited. I'm going to try to use an old webcam and make an adapter the plastic way (for now) this week if I get spare time. I'll be sure to let you know if I can get any images with that rig.

Thanks very much for taking the time to give me pointers. I hope one of the moderators applauds your time spent here. I'll give it a star though

-WFA

reply to post by WitnessFromAfar


Thanks for the star!

My mirrors took around five months to complete working evenings in the garage. I remember having numb fingers for weeks. The constant grinding and polishing action can lead to repetative strain injury. Those old mirror makers must have developed muscles like a blacksmith's. I considered building a motorised rig to make a 10" but then thought better of it. I sold my first scope for $200 and put it towards the LX200.

WG3

Yeah, I forgot to mention, I was also using a 2x barlow lense.
I seen these crazy dots between 8:20 and 8:30, roughly. I was too excited to pay any real attention to anything else.