I saw Something Strange Through my Telescope?

Question

This is what happened. I took my telescope and pointed it to a random position in the sky at about 72 degree elevation fairly close to the star Actarus. Anyways it was at a random position with only a few faint stars visible that wouldn't be visible with the naked eye. Then all of a suden, I noticed an object moving straight up at a fairly fast speed. It looked exactly like a faint star but was moving straight up pretty fast. It took less than 3 seconds for it to move from the bottom of my field of view to the top. Like I said, it looked virtually like a star and must have been far away. I don't think it was a plane because one it didn't have blinking lights and second it was moving straight up fairly fast. Satellites don't move that fast and I'm pretty sure all comets would have a visible tale. What do you guys think it was?

Answer 1

Most probably a satellite.  

Answer 2

No, it could've been a satellite. Satellites move very fast through the eyepiece of a telescope. I've caught a telescope in my eyepiece before. It only lasted for maybe a second because that was a fairly powerful telescope. Satellites have a faint light, and don't blink. They also move in a straight line across the night sky, and move fairly fast.

Answer 3

It definitely was a satellite.  There are so many of them now that i often will see one through my finder scope while trying to find some faint fuzzy thing.  And there are tons of them that are just below visual brightness.

Just after darkness falls locally, the Sun is still illuminating satellites that are 100, 400, 26,000 miles up.  That's what makes them so bright.

Answer 4

Satellites do move that fast, through the field of view of a telescope. I'm quite sure it was a satellite you saw. Comets, by the way, don't appear to visibly move across the sky, unless observed over several nights.

Answer 5

through a telesscope, satellites move fast too.

Answer 6

As you say, it moved from the bottom of your field to the top. Since telescopes reverse the image, it was moving from up to down. It was either a very small shooting star or a satellite.

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Answer 7

Satellite.  There are many of them.  The space station, the Iridiums are bright, many others.

You could probably find out which it was if you know the location and time.  Go to heavens above and type it in and find out.

Answer 8

It was a lightning bug playing with you!  :-)

Answer 9

Actually, it probably was a satellite.  I'm not sure about your field of view or magnification settings, but a three seconds seems like an incredibly long time for a satellite to cross a field of view, not a short one.  Unless you have a large field of view.