Asteroid Zoo Talk

the artifact dance

  • Celtris by Celtris

    Did you notice that most artifacts are moving in the same manner? In sample 2 they jump up, in 3rd sample they are at the right of their inital position and than they jump to the left. Both dark and bright artifacts do that.
    Why is that?

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    It has to do with how the pictures are taken. Each frames is taken about 10 minutes apart. When the telescope re-points at the target area, it intentionally aims just slightly off center from where the previous frame was taken. This causes image artifacts such as a bad pixel in the camera (a light type of artifact) or a speck of dust on the lens (a dark type of artifact) to move in this pattern when the sets of images are aligned correctly. This allows artifacts to stand out this way but allows actual asteroid to move in a regular straight line.

    Posted