Red dot over the Moon

Hi everybody,

Last Feb 8th I took my Orion XT-8 and Nikon Coolpix 3700 to take some pictures of the Moon (I have the adapter to put the camera in front of the eyepiece). One of the pictures came up pretty nice, so I used it as my desktop background. Few days after I noticed a 'red dot' on the picture (near Copernicus), and then I looked at the other pictures I took that night and the same red dot can be seen approaching and moving over the Moon. The pics were taken at 8:19pm central time US (with ~20 sec difference between them), from College Station, Texas (near Houston).

I checked on the Starry Night software for information about satellites, but couldn't find anything.

Can anybody help me figure out what is this red dot? a satellite? a problem with my camera?. Any help will be apreciated.

Thanks,
Carlos

Attached Image:

Have you checked on stationary (24hr orbit) satellites?

It does seem to be moving over the craters ever so slightly. However, it seems to be in the same place in relation to the frame itself. Therefore, it is probably something on the sensor of the camera itself. Probably a piece of dust or something.

Or a base for the Martians preparing to invade the earth. Although in the movies they usually stage their troops on the far side of the moon.

Alex

Find attached 2 more pics I took that day (8:15 and 8:16pm). In the first one the red dot is 'in space', aproaching the Moon. In the second (rigth) the dot is over the edge.

Where should I go to check for geo satellites? I checked on the Starry Night software (I know it has some satellite info), but nothing came up.

thanks,
CAS

Attached Image:

Carlos: I could not see the red dot on the second of your two posts, but I did a quick calculation based on the change in the dot's position on the first images you posted, and was surprised to conclude that the change may be inconsistent with the belief that the dot is an artifact attributable to your film or camera. Don't take these data too seriously, but here's what I did: The dot appears to have moved in a westerly direction (the direction you would expect it to move if it were just a photographic artifact) a distance approximately equal to the diameter of crater Copernicus during what you estimated as a 20 second time difference between the two images; the angular diameter of Copernicus seen from earth is around 49 arcseconds; based on moon's sidereal orbital period of 29.53 days, during 20 seconds of time the moon, or any point on its surface, as seen from the earth would move in an easterly direction through about 10.16 arcseconds. It would therefore seem that during a period of about 20 seconds the red dot seemed to change its position by about 49 arcseconds but, if the dot was attributable to an artifact in your film or camera, that change in position should have been only about 10.16 arcseconds. The implication would be that the red dot was indeed a satellite (or any kind of other extra-terrestial phenomenon that it amuses you to speculate about).

It has to be a problem with your sensor. Take a shot of a white piece of printer paper and the red spot will appear there as well. Don't use flash.