So, here is the (short) story: Yesterday I was using a remote telescope chasing more integration for an image of Sh2-64, right at the edge of the Scutum star-cloud. In hindisght I could have probably tried it from here but not with the same chances of success (or not, turns out the little bugger is rather faint). The exposure sequence was 2 300s integrations in Ha, then R,G and B exposures of 300s each. Note that the actual temporal ordering in remote observatories is normally out of your hands. Rightly so, it turned out that Ha exposures were taken first. So I downloaded them first and had a look to my great surpise I found a weird-looking object (for lack of better words) where there rightly should be none and bright in R as well, as shown in the picture below.
The image above is the calibrated stack of the 2 300s Ha exposures which didn't show movement of the "thing" between the two frames, being fixed relative to the background stars. It did show minor change of intensities between the two exposures but nothing that could be construed as "motion".
Downloading the remaining frames (in the temporal order R, B and G) showed the "thing" much faded in the R and nearly invisible in the G and nothing in the B, or so I thought.
I processed (calibrated and colour balanced to come up with the folloiwng RGB close-up (all images are at 1:1 scale):
That above shows clearly the faded R trace of the "thing, a very faint G shifted toward the bottom and the nearly invisible trace of itself in the B channel in between the two, so that the spatial shift is in temporal order.
Finally this is the HaRGB composite of the 4 channels:
I'd have to note that the "thing" is very much brighter than the nebula itself (sadly!).
So, the question is really: Does anyone has experienced anything similar and what could be the source of the phenomenon? Sprites? Other upper atmospheric weird phenomena? Note that man-made cause seems unlikely as the observatory in question is far from inhabitated place in the Namibian countryside (there seems no shortage of satellites though!).
Final note: imaging the same field several hours later showed nothing there.
The image above is the calibrated stack of the 2 300s Ha exposures which didn't show movement of the "thing" between the two frames, being fixed relative to the background stars. It did show minor change of intensities between the two exposures but nothing that could be construed as "motion".
Downloading the remaining frames (in the temporal order R, B and G) showed the "thing" much faded in the R and nearly invisible in the G and nothing in the B, or so I thought.
I processed (calibrated and colour balanced to come up with the folloiwng RGB close-up (all images are at 1:1 scale):
That above shows clearly the faded R trace of the "thing, a very faint G shifted toward the bottom and the nearly invisible trace of itself in the B channel in between the two, so that the spatial shift is in temporal order.
Finally this is the HaRGB composite of the 4 channels:
I'd have to note that the "thing" is very much brighter than the nebula itself (sadly!).
So, the question is really: Does anyone has experienced anything similar and what could be the source of the phenomenon? Sprites? Other upper atmospheric weird phenomena? Note that man-made cause seems unlikely as the observatory in question is far from inhabitated place in the Namibian countryside (there seems no shortage of satellites though!).
Final note: imaging the same field several hours later showed nothing there.
