2017-09-25 - Lancaster, KY - Other

An unusual and apparently domed object moving due west.

At 19:26 on 9-25-2017, I observed a white cloud-like object about 10 degrees to the right of the waxing crescent moon. At 10 degrees to the right of that object was a plane with a contrail. I was in Lancaster, Kentucky at that time.

I called my brother in neighboring Lincoln County and asked him to go out to observe the object. He was about 3 miles south of my location. While on the phone the object became very bright. This was caused by the angle from the sun. I have seen this occur when planes fly toward the western horizon after sunset. The object and the plane were moving east to west. They appeared to move about the same speed. However, the plane did not reflect any sunlight.

My brother did not see the object brighten. It lasted a few seconds. Finally he was able to get outside and find the object with binoculars. His description is as follows: The object appeared to have a large, low dome above an undefined structure below. The "dome" reflected a yellow glow from the setting sun. I followed the object with binoculars for a minute or so until it just vanished from view. I'm not sure if the object just ceased reflecting sunlight, or if it moved off at a very high rate of speed. Total time of my observation was about two minutes.

Finally, I tracked the object from the Lancaster location until it became a pale white dot on the western horizon and vanished. My observation was naked eye and lasted about 5 minutes. It did not appear to be a plane. Hopefully someone else saw it and can identify it.

My brother and I are amateur astronomers and have been for 45 years. It was not a plane. We are very familiar with the night sky. We are located in Central Kentucky and we observe many flights of aircraft daily.