Crescent moving NW over Riverside CA
I am the only witness I know of. I am an astrophysicist and can usually explain these things. I was not in any way inebriated when I saw this.
At approximately 6pm I was taking my trash out and looked up to admire the stars. I noticed something moving across the sky. It was crescent shaped, dim, and about 5" across. It moved across about 45 degrees of sky in 10 to 20 seconds in a northwest direction. It did not change shape or brightness.
I tried to surmise whether it was something low and hovering (a drone or maybe a group of birds moving pretty quick) or higher and moving very quickly. I thought perhaps I wasn't seeing it clearly at first but after a few seconds I could see a clear cresent shape. The lighting on it did not change in a way I would expect if it was low. I decided it was probably a bow shock catching the sun (now set)'s light like a noctilucent cloud. However I am unfamiliar with what produces such long lived and steadily moving bowshock. I did not see that there were any vandenburg launches when I looked after.
One other odd note: as I was watching it a meteor passed through it (diagonally vaguely ENE and at a very different soured of course so I assumed it was unrelated).
I'm very interested in optical phenomena and as I said am an astronomer so I usually explain these things easily. This time while I suppose a jet or something might produce such a bow shock I am a little baffled so I thought I should report it.
I am the only witness I know of. I am an astrophysicist and can usually explain these things. I was not in any way inebriated when I saw this.
At approximately 6pm I was taking my trash out and looked up to admire the stars. I noticed something moving across the sky. It was crescent shaped, dim, and about 5" across. It moved across about 45 degrees of sky in 10 to 20 seconds in a northwest direction. It did not change shape or brightness.
I tried to surmise whether it was something low and hovering (a drone or maybe a group of birds moving pretty quick) or higher and moving very quickly. I thought perhaps I wasn't seeing it clearly at first but after a few seconds I could see a clear cresent shape. The lighting on it did not change in a way I would expect if it was low. I decided it was probably a bow shock catching the sun (now set)'s light like a noctilucent cloud. However I am unfamiliar with what produces such long lived and steadily moving bowshock. I did not see that there were any vandenburg launches when I looked after.
One other odd note: as I was watching it a meteor passed through it (diagonally vaguely ENE and at a very different soured of course so I assumed it was unrelated).
I'm very interested in optical phenomena and as I said am an astronomer so I usually explain these things easily. This time while I suppose a jet or something might produce such a bow shock I am a little baffled so I thought I should report it.
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Riverside
USA
20 seconds
20 seconds
33.95
-117.41
other
CA
Occurred : 11/4/2020 18:00 (Entered as : 11/04/2020 18:00) Reported: 11/4/2020 7:08:44 PM 19:08 Posted: 12/23/2020 Location: Riverside, CA Shape: Other Duration: 20 seconds
Crescent moving NW over Riverside CA