Fireball in Osijek, Croatia [sunlit contrail]

Leopold

New Member
I took these photos with my phone three years ago, and they've been on my phone since then, and I've been wondering what it is.

The story goes that my niece came to my house in the afternoon and said that she was taking her dog for a walk and that she saw a fireball in the sky. So we went to see it, and, to my surprise, there really was something on the sky and it didn't seem to move. It looked like a small sun (I guess it would be embarrassing if it turns out to be the sun). Back then I thought it was probably Venus, but I have a shitty smartphone that doesn't have a gyroscope, so I couldn't load Stellarium app to show me exactly what it was.

So like I said, I thought it was Venus and didn't think much about it until recently when I opened Stellarium on my desktop and tried to see if it was Venus, but it seems that Venus was not in that direction at that time. It seems more like it was the space station?

What do you think?

It was in city called Osijek in Croatia by the river after rain on September 9th, 2022 at 18 h and 43 min. Camera was smartphone Samsung Galaxy A12. I was facing northwest. All photos are taken by the phone, meaning that I did not crop them. Interestingly, you cannot see the fireball on the big one and I zoomed in with the camera and took two with it. There was also a rainbow behind me to the northeast, and I've put these two photos in, although there is no UFO in them. I also put the Google Map screenshot of my position, which is a green dot and a red arrow of what I was facing, but I see that I should have tilted the arrow more to the north.

Coordinates of the place: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5617248,18.7243434,509m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAyMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

A little bit of info is that behind me on the east (on top of a graveyard) is a small army base, and because of that Google skews the data a little bit because it's supposed to be a secret, so there is no 3D view of the buildings in the vicinity.
 

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2025-10-23_12-04-38.jpg


The wide shot is taken a minute or so away from the close-up.

I suspect that the fireball is simply a cloud lit by the sun. Possibly a short-lived airplane contrail from a plane flying nearly directly away. It's quite common for such contrails to be reported as "fireballs".
 
The rainbow image is nice too; the setting sun has given it a pink tinge, a phenomenon sometimes called a 'pinkbow'.
Here's one I took a few years ago.
pinkbow.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The rainbow image is nice too; the setting sun has given it a pink tinge, a phenomenon sometimes called a 'pinkbow'.
Here's one I took a few years ago.
View attachment 85247

Dude, reduce the unsharp mask, it's not necessary for such a scene.

EDIT: but otherwise, yes, it's a good'un. I'm just hypersensitive to digital filters.
 
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