<p>I noticed that in many videos meteorites look like a chain of moving luminous points.
What could be the reason for this phenomenon?</p>
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CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T07:49:39.927Z
Those aren't meteors,  they are airplane lights.  They look like a chain of dots on a timelapse because they are flashing.
James K
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T11:28:13.513Z
That's not an exact duplicate, but the issue in your earlier question is essentially the same.  If you take a timelapse of the sky, you are likely to get some aircraft in the shot.
James K
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T13:28:18.837Z
@JamesK  yes, these questions are similar, but they are not the same.
if these are airplanes, then I can’t imagine how such an image is obtained? 
You can often encounter the opposite situation with a sufficiently long shutter speed, when a moving point becomes a luminous line. 
But I can't imagine one point turning into several in one frame.
Vladimir Orlov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T14:06:50.010Z
Because it's a strobe light, which is standard safety gear for flying a plane at night. It flashes for a fraction of a second, then goes dark for a couple of seconds. If you take a photo of that with a long shutter duration, you'll get a bright patch in each location where the flash happened with dark between, or possibly with a thinner streak of light between the flashes if the plane has strobes *and* a continuous light running. (Most airplanes don't use running lights at altitude, and turn them on when beginning descent, but it depends on the specific aircraft and on the pilot's choices.)
Darth Pseudonym
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T15:45:21.270Z
@DarthPseudonym    It is theoretically impossible to confuse an airplane with a meteorite, because their angular velocities differ by tens, or even a hundred times.  Which objects are then meteorites?
If these are planes, then they should be similar, but they look very different. 
Moreover, there are too many planes in such a narrow area of space. Such a density of flights is only possible near large airports.
Vladimir Orlov
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T16:41:13.603Z
You can't tell the angular velocity of an object in a time lapse video. Anything moving faster than a star is just a streak because of the slow shutter speed. I honestly don't think anything in these videos is actually a meteor -- planes are much more common than meteors on an average night unless you've specifically picked out a section of sky to specifically avoid flight lanes.  These videos honestly do NOT show an unusually large number of overflights for a randomly selected sky view anywhere in north america, europe, or the UK.
Darth Pseudonym
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-28T17:10:15.347Z
If you have the interest to, you might want to get on flightaware.com/live and zoom in on different areas of the map -- it's shocking how many airliners are overflying any given area even in the middle of the night. You can find places -- the Amazon, Siberia, the middle of the Pacific, central Africa -- but NA and Europe are just packed with planes. (For the record, if this was anywhere near a major airport, it wouldn't be a handful of streaks across the sky in an hour or two; you'd see hundreds of those, just a constant flow of light tracing the paths in and out of that airspace.)
Darth Pseudonym
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-31T13:54:18.563Z
I have plenty of these on my night photos (meteors are much more rare) :). So from personal experience yes, they are airplanes.
Heopps
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-07T07:22:46.693Z
Vladimir - those are very obviously planes, and as a pilot and aero enthusiast who has flightradar open almost all day every day, I can tell you that your comment re density only being like that near airports is just wrong.
Rory Alsop
<meteorite>
Why do meteorites often look like a chain of individual dots?
Vladimir Orlov
# Why do meteorites often look like a chain of individual dots?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-05-28)

I noticed that in many videos meteorites look like a chain of moving luminous points.
What could be the reason for this phenomenon?

Screenshots:
[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/A2spfEu8.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/A2spfEu8.jpg)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/kyKYMnb8.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/kyKYMnb8.jpg)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/FyCBk7aV.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/FyCBk7aV.jpg)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/2krPyjM6.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/2krPyjM6.jpg)

Preview

0:24

0 - 0:40

0:08

**Tags:** meteorite
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Those aren't meteors,  they are airplane lights.  They look like a chain of dots on a timelapse because they are flashing.  
> **username_1**: That's not an exact duplicate, but the issue in your earlier question is essentially the same.  If you take a timelapse of the sky, you are likely to get some aircraft in the shot.  
> **username_0**: @JamesK  yes, these questions are similar, but they are not the same. if these are airplanes, then I can’t imagine how such an image is obtained?  You can often encounter the opposite situation with a sufficiently long shutter speed, when a moving point becomes a luminous line.  But I can't imagine one point turning into several in one frame.  
> **username_2**: Because it's a strobe light, which is standard safety gear for flying a plane at night. It flashes for a fraction of a second, then goes dark for a couple of seconds. If you take a photo of that with a long shutter duration, you'll get a bright patch in each location where the flash happened with dark between, or possibly with a thinner streak of light between the flashes if the plane has strobes *and* a continuous light running. (Most airplanes don't use running lights at altitude, and turn them on when beginning descent, but it depends on the specific aircraft and on the pilot's choices.)  
> **username_0**: @DarthPseudonym    It is theoretically impossible to confuse an airplane with a meteorite, because their angular velocities differ by tens, or even a hundred times.  Which objects are then meteorites? If these are planes, then they should be similar, but they look very different.  Moreover, there are too many planes in such a narrow area of space. Such a density of flights is only possible near large airports.  
> **username_2**: You can't tell the angular velocity of an object in a time lapse video. Anything moving faster than a star is just a streak because of the slow shutter speed. I honestly don't think anything in these videos is actually a meteor -- planes are much more common than meteors on an average night unless you've specifically picked out a section of sky to specifically avoid flight lanes.  These videos honestly do NOT show an unusually large number of overflights for a randomly selected sky view anywhere in north america, europe, or the UK.  
> **username_2**: If you have the interest to, you might want to get on flightaware.com/live and zoom in on different areas of the map -- it's shocking how many airliners are overflying any given area even in the middle of the night. You can find places -- the Amazon, Siberia, the middle of the Pacific, central Africa -- but NA and Europe are just packed with planes. (For the record, if this was anywhere near a major airport, it wouldn't be a handful of streaks across the sky in an hour or two; you'd see hundreds of those, just a constant flow of light tracing the paths in and out of that airspace.)  
> **username_3**: I have plenty of these on my night photos (meteors are much more rare) :). So from personal experience yes, they are airplanes.  
> **username_4**: Vladimir - those are very obviously planes, and as a pilot and aero enthusiast who has flightradar open almost all day every day, I can tell you that your comment re density only being like that near airports is just wrong.  

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## 0 answers

