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what kind of trail is this?

Artifacts Satellite
9 replies•184 views
adrian-HG avatar
adrian-HG avatar

What could cause this type of stellar trail? It looks a bit different from satellites and airplanes.

this is a raw 180 seconds OIII light taken 28-08-3035

📷 trail light.jpgtrail light.jpg

Jure Menart avatar
Jure Menart avatar

Looks like meteor trail to me :)

adrian-HG avatar
adrian-HG avatar

thanks for the answer ! , i never seen this bfore in my lights

andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Or a rotating satellite. More likely.
Die Launische Diva avatar
Die Launische Diva avatar

I also believe it is a spinning satellite. If your telescope had a wider field of view, you could possibly see another instance of it along the imaginary line extending from the trail.

Well Written
Jure Menart avatar
Jure Menart avatar

Yes, you two are right - you can see the dimm trail through the image.

I didn’t look careful enough at the beginning.

Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar

Agreed.

On that topic, I have always wished that someone would come out with an AI tool to remove satellite trails from sub frames. If you have enough frames standard rejection removes them well most of the time but for fewer frames it often leaves a remnant. If they were removed from the subs, even if it was not done all that perfectly, that will get rid of them totally by the time rejection is done. I have done this manually with the clone tool on occasion and it works very well but is tedious. I would think this would be a task at which AI would do well

One thing is for sure and that is this issue is only going to get worse.

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Die Launische Diva avatar
Die Launische Diva avatar

Bill McLaughlin · Sep 12, 2025, 02:17 PM

I have always wished that someone would come out with an AI tool to remove satellite trails from sub frames.

Does Satellite Trail Removal from Seti Astro (https://www.setiastro.com/cosmic-clarity) work for you? I haven’t tried it myself 🙂

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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
It doesn't work well, I'm afraid, at least in the final composite. Might work if just removing the traces on some subframes.
Bob Lockwood avatar
Bob Lockwood avatar
To the OP, am I seeing the date correctly, 28th of August 3035.

This is an example of both, left center is a meteor (shooting star), bottom center is a spinning satellite.
I intentionally left both in this image I did back in 2018. Both were in single sub frames.