strange NASA pictures (2 unknown objects near the Sun) -amateur astronomers, any suggestion? , page 1

NASA website for the full resolution pictures:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

choose the "stereo ahead" section..

Starting with 3rd of August, NASA STEREO publishes some strange pictures with 2 objects moving across . One of them could be a planet, but what is the second stationary object ? If anyone could check with an astronomy program what that object is, but i have the feeling something is not right!


a preview here:









for the Nibiru fans: it is not Nibiru



note: the dark circle in the center is actually the Sun covered in order to study it`s corona

[edit on 13-8-2008 by sty]

reply to post by LOLZebra

---

lol,why not Nibiru: the object is too large,if it was a star everyone would see it and talk about it as there are loads of amateur astronomer with telescopes.

However,i just suspect what the object is not but no ideea what it is -

it could be something really strange or just a coincidence with Mercury + a rock passing by , however only some specialised software would tell if we should expect what we see there ..

[edit on 13-8-2008 by sty]

a close look at the object:

the original picures here:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...


the "ahead" and "behind" pictures display the same shape, so it cannot be the sat`s lenses.



the earliest here:


(original link here: stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...)

and after 4 days :





original here:

stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...


question: if the picture looks the same in the "ahead" and "behind" picture, what does it mean?




[edit on 13-8-2008 by sty]

[edit on 13-8-2008 by sty]

To answer all questions, this is mercury and saturn. A quick look at a current solar system chart proves it:
www.heavens-above.com...
Bear in mind that the ahead satellite is ahead of us in orbit so it sees mercury much close to the sun than we do.
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...
Mercury orbits the sun much faster than saturn, which is why the little dot can be seen overtaking the big dot.
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...
All bright objects look funky when they first enter the field of view of stereo, probably a consequence of the lens design, thus the "flare" coming from mercury early on can only be seen near the left side of the field. The same thing happened when saturn first began to enter the field of view in july:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by sty
question: if the picture looks the same in the "ahead" and "behind" picture, what does it mean?

It means the "behind" satellite experience planetary conjunction first, then the "ahead" satellite experienced the same thing with the same planets later on.

*Edit to add:
Sorry, the bright one is venus, not saturn. Heaven's above chart is not accurate enough for determining the occurance of conjunctions from stereo's point of view since it cannot show stereo's exact position. Use the stereo-specific solar system chart instead here for future identifications:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...
Put in august 9th, select "inner solar system" for field of view and it becomes plainly obvious that venus and merucy should appear right next to the sun from stereo's "ahead" position. Saturn is close, but not quite in there.

[edit on 14-8-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by Amaxium
Could this be the infamous Nibiru (Planet X) other threads have been talking about?

No, because it's mercury and venus.

stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

[edit on 14-8-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by Interestinggg
If this is looking directly at the sun, through a filter.
Wouldn't this massive light surge in the image be a failure of the filter?
IE:A tear in it?

The coronagraph does not use any filters that would interfere with planetary or star light.

By the way, I was wrong about the bright planet, sorry, it's venus, not saturn. See here:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

I generated a plot for august 9th and this should be the resulting image, hopefully it loads properly:
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

[edit on 14-8-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by sty
Thenk you for the explanation. If your explanation correct, then the fast moving object is Mercury and the slower one is Venus. Just bit of an odd picture still , with that beam of light comming up from Mercury . That line is prezent on the latter pictures too , and also the wierd shape is common to both "ahead" and "behind" pictures.. but I guess it is nothing unexplainable as I understood that the STEREO satelite should have been retired already..

If you look at venus the line is present there too in july when venus was where mercury was on august 9th. It's the same angle and everything, only larger, proportional to venus' greater brightness. It's related to STEREO's optics, akin to a lens flare.
stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

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