[traer]

can someone please give me an idea as to what this light may be? i thought i may have caught a shooting star at first, then i thought that maybe the shutter speed was too low. When i look at the other lights, they aren't blurred however, there is one light below that looks the same as this.

I don't know what would account for such a long blur, especially considering that there is nothing that high in the sky from that position.

i am confused, someone please shed some light.

[Sonsey]

Sorry traer, the pic broke the 1000pix limit we have here at Pixalo...

...If you upload a smaller version and send me the link I'll be happy to edit it back in for you.

[traer]

edited.

[Rob Barron]

No way it's a shooting star, that's for sure. You have used a fast shgutter speed to freeze the action so that shooting star would have to be moving at one heck of a speed to produce a trail like that. Also the angle of it means that the shooting star is travelling upwards from the earth in terms of relative angle. Most shooting stars traverse the night sky in a horizontal arc.

Hard to say what this is but it could have been someone setting of a firework in the distance or something like that. Whatever it is will be a matter of conjecture so maybe others will have some different ideas but I doubt we will ever give you a definite answer on this one. Your camera either doesn't include EXIF info or you have stripped it so I can't see what shutter speed and aperture you were using but I am guessing it is about 1/200th to 1/250th of a second at a narrow aperture though I think it was on auto-exposure with the flash so you might not know. It certainly has a deep depth of field and clearly is fast enough to freeze this guy. As flash was used, it is likely that it wasn't as dark as it appears in the photo but you can tell us that.

So, sorry I can't be more definitive on this. I am fairly certain it isn't a heavenly body as it is moving too fast. Although shooting stars move quickly, this has travelled an incredibly long way in c. 1/250th of a second! I am not saying for certain it isn't though, celestial bodies do all sorts of peculiar things so anything is possible. I have looked at this in PS and it is about 5 degrees rotated but even when rotating it back to vertical, the streak is still at an angle of about 10 degrees off vertical.

Anyone else got any ideas or is this just one of those strange things that we sometimes get and can't be sure about?

Cheers,
Rob

[traer]

the shutter speed was 1/60th (1/64), the data was stripped because of the resize edit. the aperture was at f2.8
it appears to be quite a distance away, it's not a flight path for planes, the army base sends their fighters the other way. also, in the bigger picture, you can see where the hill ends.
here is a link to the original - 2848x2136 http://www.1120.co.uk/steven.jpg

[Australopithecus]

Looks like a flare shooting upwards. You say there's a military base in that vicinity.

[traer]

yes, about 15-20 miles behind me, over a couple of hills and the river tay... so i don't think it would be a flare from them, or anyone else. it's a bit hard to describe if you don't live here.

i was in that spot for another half-hour and there is nothing on any previous shots, all at the same settings. ther is a small airport a couple miles behind where i am standing, but they only fly twin engine aircraft and as far as i am aware, they do not use that route.
ahh well, i think this is going to be just some trick of the camera lol.