2020-10-07 - Grass Valley, CA - Disk

I captured a disk-like object with astro-photography equipment, and can not explain it with my astronomy, physics, or camera knowledge.

On the evening of October 7th 2020, a clear night, I began my observing run as an amateur astronomer. After my automated scope was set up and running, I decided to do some DSLR imaging of the Milky Way. I was using my Nikon 3200 camera with a William Optics Precision Refractor scope on a tracking mount. I was using Mars as a bright focusing point. During the focus procedure, while examining the image for focus and sharpness, I noticed an object that appeared to be out of focus in comparison to the rest of the image, which was odd. I removed the SD card to examine the image on my laptop. When I zoomed in on this oddity in the image, I can only say I was jaw dropped. There was a disk shaped object that just could not be in the image according to all logic. As an avid amateur astronomer for the past 30 years, I have taken tens of thousands of images and have never seen anything like this, and could not explain what I was looking at. My initial thought was that ! this was a lensing aberration, yet with the sophistication of the equipment and the amount of time that I have used this setup, that conclusion just doesn't seem to add up. Furthermore, it was a 9 second exposure image, meaning that the object had to be stationary in those 9 seconds, or it would be a blurry streak. If I had simply bumped the camera to create the warped shape, then everything else in the image would also be warped. But every other object in the frame is perfectly round. Any object of rational origin in or out of the atmosphere would not be still enough to create such a sharp image. The appearance of the object in the image implies that if it is not within close proximity, then it must be an extremely large object. Keep in mind, all of this was rattling through my brain within seconds of seeing the image. I immediately ran back to the scope, which again is on a precision tracking mount, so the position would not have changed. I shot additional images, only to! find that the object was no longer there. I grabbed my 100mm ! astro-bi noculars, visually scanned the area, and was unable to locate anything unusual or moving in the area. The object was simply gone. I went back to my laptop to re-examine for any other explanations, and I showed the image to my daughter. She is 16 years old, in an advanced high school program, and dedicates most of her time to her education. In short, she has a scientific mind, and was utterly blown away by this image as well. She has also been searching for an explanation, and is beyond stumped. I cannot dispute the logic pointing to the conclusion that this image defies all rationality. I am open to anything that would explain what I captured that night, but as of right now, I have no reason to believe that this is anything other than a physical object as captured in the image. As to what that object actually is, I will leave that up to others to decide for themselves.