Sighting in Orgon, June 18, 2009

Between 23:59 and 00:13, an amateur astronomer photographed the star cluster M13. Looking over the pictures afterwards, they were surprised to find, on several of them, a dot with a red streak that seemed to show an object in motion. The witness had not noticed anything directly while taking the photos. They were meant to pass on the original raw images, but these were lost after a computer failure, so GEIPAN could not analyse them.

The investigation looked at several possibilities. A movement visible over about fifteen minutes seems to rule out the usual low-orbit satellites, whose relative motion is very fast. A large piece of orbiting debris, probably an uncontrolled object, could fit, since its brightness can vary if it is tumbling. However, its angular speed would have carried it about 28° during the sequence, whereas it would have stayed within the telescope's field of view. A near-Earth asteroid was also considered, but this looked unlikely, as the area photographed lies far from the ecliptic, where most such objects orbit. An optical or photographic artefact, such as stray internal or external reflections, also remained possible.

Because of insufficient information, GEIPAN classified the case as C.