Observation: December 2004

Exposure time: Six images over ~ 3 hours. First two images are 1 minute apart, last four images are each 1 hour apart.

Description of Object:

Comet Tucker moves across the night sky on its nearest apporach.  Tucker passed perihelion on December 6th 2004.

But Comet Tucker is not the only object in this image.  The first two image frames show a geo-synchronous satellite streaking across the sky while Comet Tucker remains relatively fixed. Typically not seen in motion, geo-synchrounous satellites maintain stationary positions in the sky with respect to the ground. However in this case, the telescope was trained on the star field in order to capture Comet Tucker's motion and caught this man-made object of the night.