My UFO? Well, I'd just rather say, Unidentified...

This past Sunday, having arrived home from an over night stay in SF, my focus was getting the dog out of the house ASAP, for his relief. This is one huge golden retriever named Humphrey, so relief comes in big tides. Here in our house, we're baby sitting Humphrey for a girlfriend while she's in Europe for a few weeks.

With a burst out the door, Humphrey and I settled into a slow meander to the local park with momentary stops at each shrub along the way. The park servers a purpose so he could do his thing. I, being PC, carry a little green plastic baggy, and properly wait do my thing. What a contrast, PC, yet environmentally unfriendly plastic, that comes with a guarranteed "Fresh Pine Scent".

Musing the upcoming day, I was planning out shots for a wedding at the Highlands Inn, in Carmel. Normally, weddings bring on a lot of stress, so in anticipation, my morning was planned to be at peace, hoping it would carry through the day. The wedding was very small, a total of 20 guests including the wedding party, so there was little to get worked up over.

Well, standing in the park, gazing at the tall trees, taking in the beautiful gradients of green, an urge came to me - dare I say a "small voice"?

"Look up".

Okay I thought, not really anticipating to find anything other that the peaceful flow of wispy clouds, my eye caught a pinpoint of light, a singular point, a disturbance to the wisps flowing by. Other than in my active imagination, I truly didn't anticipate a real "sighting", but no less, there it was. To be sure, it was more Unidentified that of the Flying variety because it was stationary. A star? A geostationary satellite? God?

I can't imagine! Ooh My! I have a real find!... Hmmm... And it is Humphrey with his new born gift... Oh the indignities of being a pet owner...

Well, I figured, if the object is still visible when I got home, I'd shoot a few frames. Off Humphrey and I went, with more of a bound in our step just so I might have a chance at capturing something unique. Depositing the dog in the house, leash still attached, I shut the door and bounded out to the car where the camera and lenses remained from the trip home.

First things first. Where's the object? In the few minutes of ardent stride home, the wisps of white had dissipated leaving deep blue over California. Pretending to be in the park, I gazed up, focusing on infinity, blinking to clear the cornea floaters that have accumulated in 44 year old eyes.

And there it was!!! Still bright, still a singular pinpoint of light, and still very stationary. Marking my spot both with my feet on the ground and the branches of the tree, the object was secure to be released from vision. Mounting my grotesquely long 100-300 L series F5.6 lens, I realized care would have to be taken to properly document this sighting. This advent needed to be handled as evidence, no less that the rigors of court admissible evidence, so RAW mode was selected as my recording format. To date, I don’t know of any software available that can write a Canon RAW .CRW file, so this should preclude any of the pissy Photoshop arguments. Not only was I concerned about the evidentiary recording, but the applied .JPG transforms could actually alter the data, corrupting the fragile image just a few pixels wide.

Just a few more adjustments to be made, the shooting could commence. Since it was little past 10:30am, with a bright blue sky, Sunny 16 was the exposure scale. My choice of manual settings were specific: ISO 400, shutter 1/1600 and F5.6, oh, and the less than helpful auto-focus turned off.

I shot a couple multiple second bursts but felt way to loose, having not taken the trouble to setup a tripod. With my car for support and my face as a stand to rest the vertically mounted camera, I shot a couple more multi-second sequences.

It’s done, and in the flash... All that’s left is a little blinking red light reminding me of a dog waggling his happy tail. Or was that me feeling giddy having captured something I couldn’t explain?

Well, when the camera light went dim, the CF card was quickly disgorged and popped in the reader. As workflow goes, I enumerated yet another directory, with meaningful details of the day - “1162_SF_GPJ_Space”. SF, the trip, GPJ a little client work to boot, and yes, something to say it all, “Space”. Cryptic, yes, but meaningful to me, for at least the next couple weeks.

With 5 minutes of download time ticking off, it was a good time to free the dog from his leash and slop him like a pig. I’m sounding cruel, but this pampered pup is enjoying a comfortable retreat here in the suburbs from the nasties of living in Pasadena. Oh yes, it must be tough, because this dog is on meds – Phenobarbital, 32.4mg tablets, with the orders “Take 1 to 2 tablets by mouth every 12 hours”. My most favorite part is the gummy warning label applied to the top of the bottle, “May cause drowsiness. Alcohol may intensify this effect. Use care when operating a car or dangerous machines”. Oh my, visions of Disney’s “The Shaggy Professor” haunt my brain. Actually, poor Humphrey is subject to seizures and this is a remedy to keep him even *more* happy.

Done! Card’s been copied to the HD. With a quick drag and drop to Photoshop CS, a dialog pops up, and as clear as day, there’s my pinpoint of light. Even crunched down to a view of 25%, the shining light is demanding of the eye. Frame after Frame, its still there, moving only in relation to my camera’s sway. As for the silly ones who’d suggest this is a spot on a defective sensor, the sway allows the pinpoint to move across the sensor, guarranteeing its existance as true visual instead of a silicon anomaly.

So, what was it? I’d guess a satellite. There’s probably a more definitive “in-the-know” answer out there. Venture a guess. I’m half curious, but am just as happy to leave the awe of “its there, and I have no clue!”. To see for yourself, click on the image above to find links to four files I’ve choosen to give out. All the rest are available, if you're so interested. These are the original .CRW files, so please be patient, Each one is almost 6mb in size, and will take a while to download.

Have fun!

...Doug