Iridium flare

Satellite hit!

or fly conspiracy

These images were taken Feb 20, 2008 at 17:27 HST from Haleakala, Maui. Is this USA 193 coming down?

The camera captured the whole sky through a 180 degree fisheye lens. North is up, and West is to the right. The black stripe across the middle is an occulting bar in place to block the sun, which is setting in the west. At the top of the frame, the lens cap is visible. The UFO is apparent in the middle frame, below, taken at 17:27:44.

The object is silhouetted against the bright afternoon sky with an apparent shock front visible.

• Exposure times are 36 microseconds.
• The pixel scale (at object location) is 8.3'/pixel (1 degree = 7.2 pix)
• The object is at azimuth 219.16, altitude 26.02 (astrometry accurate to ~2', 0.2 pix)
• the elongation is ~4.1 deg

17:27:42

17:27:44

17:27:45

difference image