On the other hand, an object passing though the field of view against the starry background will expose the path which it took. They often leave two or more parallel streaks. Satellites leave a faint, but very straight line. The satellite's path line may vary in brightness due to it rotation and reflecting characteristics. Those steps can be used to approximate the satellite's velocity.
Meteors are more unpredictable in their appearance.
They often leave a very short path line with varying magnitude. If you see a streak that has a definite beginning and end within the field of view, it is likely to be a meteor, because satellites and airplanes rarely appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast. However, you may see the path of an airplane or satellite end abruptly if the camera's shutter closed while the object was in view. This streak has a regular pattern which is exactly aligned with a row of pixels - evidence that it is not something in the sky, but rather a problem that occurred somewhere between the CCD camera and the image archive. Bleeding pixels cause very short streaks.