A comet? a Planet? I saw something last night

I watch the skies every day and every night. I saw a different light last night that I have never seen before. I am living in a american mexico border town near Acuna Ciudad Mexico. I tell you this to give you my location. I dont know how to do the longitude latitude thing. If you look at the map you will see Amestad Resivour In Del Rio TX. You will see the international bride, but if you stay on Highway 90 you will notice there is another bridge in america that crosses over the resivour, I live 1 1/2 miles west of this bridge on the lake/resivour. So last night I am sitting out on the patio around 9:00pm. I quickly noticed what at first I thought was a UFO. But when I got my camera and put the 8x zoom lens on I could clearly see it was nto a UFO, not a star, not a comet, it had no tail. I saw a planet. I have pictures of this, but they are not real clear. I am setting this thread into action in hopes someone with photo experience can clear it up and put the image into this thread. You will find it is a PLANET. You will see it is much closer then even the moon, I took a few pics of the moon also to show a comparison.

here are the moon pics:
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Here is the other object:
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Im no photographer and this is apparent in my images, but i do know there are those out there that can clear a pic enough you can see what this object is.

And for the records it is not a satellite, I could clearly see it through my camera it is a planet of a type. I jsut couldnt stabilize the camera enough to get a clear pic.

reply to post by lbndhr

I recommend you download this free program: www.stellarium.org...

Just run that and it will tell you what planet you saw, if it was a planet.

You need to change the date and time in Stellarium to the date and time of your sighting, and look in the correct direction of the sky (did you even mention the direction?).

And this way, when you have future sightings, you will be able to look those up too. It's a nice program.

By the way, the moon is about a quarter of a million miles away. The planets are millions and millions of miles away. There are no planets closer than the moon, so I don't know what you meant by that.

I couldn't do much with your pics, but Stellarium is what you really need.

What direction in the sky did you get the photo? It seems this planet was much less bright than the moon. Was the moon on zoom also? I look forward to seeing what others have to say about this.

You need way better pics than that.
But that aside I'd wager it's Jupiter as it is fairly prominent in the night sky at the moment. It's even been mistaken for a signal flare believe it or not.

yeah i have seen jupitar alot recently. like the guy above me said, it is most likely just that.

Your moon pics are long exposure nothings.
It's all lens flares... here's your Jupiter


There is no planet near the moon or sun. Come on people, amateur astronomers are all over the place... YOU are most likely NOT going to be the breaking news on this stuff using a camera and simple filters.


Lens flares!

reply to post by lbndhr


depending on what direction you were looking it could have been Jupiter. Jupiter is the brightest object in the sky currentley. If you look at it through binoculars or a small telescope you shoul be a ble to see 1-4 of its moons as well. If it's not Jupiter then i don't know what it is by the pictures. Astonomy.com has a statdome program that tells you everything that you can see in the night sky.

So, you saw a planet. That was seemingly "much closer then even the moon", according to you.

How were you able to take clear and bright pictures of a illuminated object that you say was the moon? Yet none of the "much closer" object?

Did anyone else see this?

The white light is from you moving the camera. Looks like a regular moon to me.


files.abovetopsecret.com...


files.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by DROKKR

I see planets all the time, and I also see that they are difficult for amateur photographers to photograph.

The trick is to turn the autofocus off, and set the focus to infinity manually. Even then you probably need a tripod to get a photo, and then it won't show much but a white dot that looks like a star. (Unless the planet is Mars in which case it could look reddish).

But some amateur photographers don't know how to do that, and they end up with out of focus pictures as a result, which is pretty much what we see in the OP pictures of the object. Even when the amateur photographer knows exactly what to do, amateur photographs of planets taken with nothing but a camera would typically not show much. Just a dot.

Originally posted by americanbuffalo1
What direction in the sky did you get the photo? It seems this planet was much less bright than the moon. Was the moon on zoom also? I look forward to seeing what others have to say about this.

If you are looking at the Texas map find DelRio on the border 150 miles south of san Antonio. I am at the west end of lake amestad, I was facing Sonora of highway 277. The time was inberween 9:00 and 9:30. I did do the 8 x zoom on all the pics. I do have a few pics I took from my phone this object from my phones view looks like a star. When I camera zoomed it I saw a planet.

Originally posted by Manhater
The white light is from you moving the camera. Looks like a regular moon to me.


files.abovetopsecret.com...


files.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 4-10-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

I took pics of moon to show the difference. The moon was behind my view- south of this object, nowhere near the object.

I think you did a great job, by even giving your location, what many of these nieve people will do.

I'm noticing that there is a little group of people who are misleading ATS-er's from this subject, some are rediculing the story, not just from this one but from all related post like this.

Something is wrong here.

reply to post by lbndhr


I don't know know what to tell you. If it's not the moon, then it's your planet. So the red image is your moon image and the blue image is your planet image.

Okay these are from your pitch black images so I guess your planet.


files.abovetopsecret.com...


files.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Human4life
I think you did a great job, by even giving your location, what many of these nieve people will do.

I'm noticing that there is a little group of people who are misleading ATS-er's from this subject, some are rediculing the story, not just from this one but from all related post like this.

Something is wrong here.

I knew there will be debunkers, nay Sayers, but I also know there are people who can answer this. I know what I saw and I never saw this before.

reply to post by lbndhr


Jupiter.....maybe just a light shined on a surface...who knows...the pics are dreadful.

Its nothing out of the ordinary thats for sure...otherwise many many more people would be reporting it. If you saw it chances are millions of others saw it, they didnt feel the need to make a thread on it though...so they must know what it is *cough* jupiter *cough*

I'm going to take pics with a tri pod tonight. If its still there. I acknowledged they are not good pics, do we really need to continually reaffirm this? I'm no space pro, but, I know when I see something new in the skies.

Originally posted by lbndhr
If you are looking at the Texas map find DelRio on the border 150 miles south of san Antonio. I am at the west end of lake amestad, I was facing Sonora of highway 277. The time was inberween 9:00 and 9:30. I did do the 8 x zoom on all the pics. I do have a few pics I took from my phone this object from my phones view looks like a star. When I camera zoomed it I saw a planet.

Del Rio is West of San Antonio, not south, it's south of Sonora.

Anyway here's the view at 9:30 last night from Del Rio. Jupiter was visible to the east, as a bright planet. You can see about how high it was, but you need to scroll to the right to see it.



There was also a bright star, Capella, to the Northeast.

Maybe you saw a solar panel flare from the ISS, which can get brighter than Jupiter and even Venus if you catch a good one.

www.isstracker.com...


No maybe not, smart money is on that you discovered a new planet.