Multicolored UFO caught on video via eyepiece projection from 8" SCT - WTF????

So me and my wife had been outside enjoying a cloudless night and the telescope and had been at it for a few hours. I had the binoculars while she was looking at some Messier objects and noticed a weird bright ???? nearing the horizon. It had not been there earlier in the night. It was defiantly flashing colors. We checked it out in the scope and this thing was totally fast oscillating colors. Red Green Yellow White it looked like to us.

Video 2 gets to the prolly best views. All this is unedited. Here is the first one.



We have an 8" Meade LX-90 SCT and were using a straight through eyepiece. I went and grabbed my camera and we started to record. It is a D5100 with the standard 18-55 mm lens. The camera has a pretty good video 1080 mode. We started out by trying to use the 12 mm eyepiece to shoot through, no dice. This was moving too fast. We went to the 32mm and it was not tracking as fast but did lose some angular resolution. This is really much harder then I had ever though ti would be. We shoot the moon often and its easy to handhold it for that but we didnt have a piggyback mount or anything like a t-adapter which would have rocked. The object was ~65 degrees west from true north according to my compass, I incorrectly stated in the video it was due east.

Here are the remaining 3 videos:

Video 2:

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Video 3:

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Video 4:


I have seen scintillation before and this would have been an amazing display of that. The real head scratcher is that it was moving faster then surrounding stars, much much much slower then a plane would have been however.

I did take some bad photos, but you can barely see anything.

Here is the best photo:

Nice catch!

I wanted to ask on the second video does it expand into that ring shaped form or is that an effect due to adjustments/zoom?

Was it changing colour to the naked eye or only through the telescope?

UFO scare sparked by lanterns

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Chinese lanterns are thought to be behind reports of unidentified flying objects, seen over Folkestone.

As was the case after a wedding in Whitstable earlier this year, the lanterns sparked a number of UFO reports, as they fly through the night sky glowing red,

Folkestone firefighters were called to a hotel on the Leas soon after 10.30pm on Saturday night after several lanterns landed on the building.

It is believed that they were relased by a wedding party at the Leas Cliff Hall, flying over the town.

Various members of the public called emergency services after seeing glowing orbs landing along the coast, also believed to be sky lanterns.

One woman e-mailed the Kentish Express website, www.kentishexpress.co.uk in the belief that they were UFOs.

She said: “At about 10pm on Saturday, looking up at the moon, there were lots of bright orange lights, flying in the same direction past the moon, towards the east.

“Overall there were about 50 unexplained lights in the sky, all flying overhead, quite low, over the time period of about half-an-hour.”

“It is said the lights were hot air balloons but they were travelling far too fast and the light was a constant glow.”

She added: “This is a great opportunity to actually realise that we may not be the only living beings and that we are actually only a small unstable planet in the entire universe.”

uE06E Folkestone has seen several, more spectacular claims of UFOs in the past.

One in 1994 followed sightings of a green saucer-shaped light in the sky over Dover and another, in Burmarsh, took place in 1997. This was the more dramatic claim, with a suggestion from a reporter that a large, triangular object hovered over the Marsh countryside, moving around suddenly.

Are you certain of that bearing?

Looks like a planet to me, possibly Jupiter at 5am... What time was it taken?

reply to post by ElOmen


The majority of the changes in size had been due to my trying to focus, its really a lot harder then I would have thought. That said at around :30 till the end of the second video you will see the spike things ??? off the top. That was just what the object was doing the entire time.

It was a slight twinkle to the naked eye, about magnitude 3-4. It was the initial appearance outta nowhere of such a bright start and then the odd motion of it got me interested. As soon as I put the scope on it I asked my wife to come over and verify, cause I have never seen anything like that.

reply to post by Qumulys


From 1:17 AM to 1:28 AM according to the file dates on the SD card

reply to post by WAKEYWAKEY


If someone released a bunch of fire lanterns in Texas they would be hunted down...we are in SERIOUS drought and wildfire conditions and that would be gross negligence at best. I am open to all options but if someone in my neck of the woods is doing that, I'm calling the cops and fire department. We had a lot of homes burn here last year.

reply to post by jollyjollyjolly


Well, no planets on Stellarium it could be at that time... Are you certain of the bearing?

reply to post by Qumulys


Yes I had my physical old school compass out, which I always do. I also pointed our smartphone "star chart" app and there was nothing there. This location is also way off the ecliptic from my backyard. I am not a great star hound by any means, but I know a bit.

Was that tonight? Cause i see a multicolored thingy in the sky, it looks like a plane from the way the colors are flashing. But that was 3 hours ago, and its still there.

I am a little surprised that someone who owns a 8" Meade is freaking out over a scintillating light - because that's all which is on the footage, a tiny light dot scintillating.

It could be anything from a plane, helicopter to a lantern to a ultra-light flyer or a night parachute jumper - since it's only a dot of light in the night we can spend the next months speculating what it might be and likely never know.

Sidenote: There are many factors which can cause heavy scintillation, the weather (warm air rising the ground), using a telescope indoors through a window (hot air at night rising from the roof etc.) - height of the object over the horizon etc..etc..

Looks like Betelgeuse through my 8'' dobsonian with a 20mm. You said it was low on the horizon it could just be a bright star and atmospheric perturbations are significantly more evident in low horizon viewing.

Nice catch op thanks for making the effort to bring it here, at the end of the day, you were there, as you probably have been many times, only you know how sure you are that it was something out of the ordinary.
Personally i know UFO's and alien craft are a reality, I am sure that after this you will be better prepared in future to capture evidence of what you see, I don't see a star or an aircraft, the colours are too fluid, vivid, and well done for catching it in such good quality.
Thank You.

reply to post by WAKEYWAKEY


You really need to post your source for any words that you got from an article or news report,
especially when Quoting someone.

ATS policy

reply to post by jollyjollyjolly


Did this light ever move? How long was it in vision?
If it was stationary, I too thought Betelgeuse. But it sounds like you know a bit about the cosmos so not sure what to think.

So in the photo, the Light was not up in the sky, ie, overhead, but straight ahead for you. Did it just disappear? Did it move?

There are many others offering lantern and star explanations. But UFO's use those lights to cover them, and the sitings we had ranged in height, 50-150 feet over our roof, some of them appeared suddenly and then disappeared at our roof, some of them flew over our roof and disappeared, some of them arched way up and went over town without notice, some of them came back over our roof and flew around out back so the black choppers showed up, and we got surveillance on more than a few occasions. Most were red lit, one was a kind of lopsided pyramid of whitish yellow light and my son with eagle vision said, that is a wingless plane flying tail down, nose in the air, and that the light is so odd. That one flew over the roof at about 50 feet roughly 3 townhouses down. They were all soundless. None were birds, orbs (they were lights covering a craft, roughly 30 feet in diameter), planes, lanterns, who knows what else.

When high up, without a greeting or pinging, subtle connection, or without it appearing and disappearing in a kind interaction with you thought, its a lot harder to know.

So did it suddenly appear? Did it disapear just as suddenly? What height do you think this was at?

Could you see it with the binoculars too?

Originally posted by flexy123
I am a little surprised that someone who owns a 8" Meade is freaking out over a scintillating light - because that's all which is on the footage, a tiny light dot scintillating.

It could be anything from a plane, helicopter to a lantern to a ultra-light flyer or a night parachute jumper - since it's only a dot of light in the night we can spend the next months speculating what it might be and likely never know.

Sidenote: There are many factors which can cause heavy scintillation, the weather (warm air rising the ground), using a telescope indoors through a window (hot air at night rising from the roof etc.) - height of the object over the horizon etc..etc..

edit on 29-7-2012 by flexy123 because: (no reason given)

Well I am sure that it does not look like a lot from the video, and I understand the assertions that it was heavy scintillation. I have witnessed heavy scintillation before and my scope was collaminated earlier, humidity was low and the dew point was holding pretty steady. I would agree if it was only heavy color shifting that it was a star, but the apparent visual magnitude was rather high. This still does not explain the spiking that happens at the top end of the object, like flaring.

In addition my star chart app on both tablet and phone didn't register anything of that magnitude in the area, but did give positive confirmation on several other stellar naked eye objects.

I believe it still to be unknown. I would also presume there is a great answer that is totally in the realm of possibility, but am mainly posting this for posterity if anyone else has additional information from the area. I know that there is a lot of very active astronomers in the area, but most of them I have called so far were not put last night as there was a significant moon wash until later.

I would also note that if this was a stellar object, it will present itself in ruffly the same spot at around the same time tonight. I will be checking.

I will also be much better prepared for capturing/tracking in the near future.

reply to post by Human_Alien


Yes the light/object did move, faster then a star but much much slower then a plane would have, it was not tracking at sidereal or any other stellar rates. It moved approximately 10 degrees in around 15-18 minutes. The video does not do justice to what we saw at the eyepiece, I was hand holding my dslr to the eyepiece, which is very hard to do at any meaningful magnification.

I am disappointed in the quality of capture I was able to get.

reply to post by Unity_99


Yes I saw it initially as and noticed an object that shouldn't be there, after 15 years of astronomy ya get pretty familiar with your hemispheres typical view. I didn't see it originate, but I tracked it until it moved down under the horizon. That was the second biggest problem with this object, I have tracking for stellar rates on the scope and this was not moving at any of them. The biggest was obviously that it had shape and color oscillations.

This object was at a great distance as well, I would have had to adjust the focus if it had been a closer object. It didn't track in a straight path, but was pretty close to a straight path. Moving again much faster then a stellar object but much slower then any aircraft I witness overhead, which are easily identifiable with the lights they present.