Not the moon, but what?
- Thread starter shari
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Can you be a bit more precise? Like a nearby town.
John J.
Senior Member.
Can you tell us what compass direction you were facing?
Did the bright area look the same when you looked at it directly as when you viewed it with the camera?
Were you looking through a window? Did the bright area appear to move or change if you moved position?
Closest town is Richmond, MO about 20 minutes from me.
I was outside. Samsung S24 phone in night mode, not sure what the shutter speed is. I was facing south.
I was facing south. It looked like the darker picture without the camera. He first picture was with my Samsung S24 in night mode. I was outside, not looking through a window. It did not change if I moved and it didn't move.
Mendel
Senior Member.
(Edit: This was posted before the above messages were approved.)
It's a light in the sky.
Other lights in the sky in the same picture (stars) appear blurry and unfocused, so this one probably is, too.
It also seems overexposed, which means there's a lot of glare, which means it looks larger in the picture than it actually is, and its shape is misleading.
(I tried to take a picture of the crescent moon, and all I got was a big round blurry blob.)
We can check if it was an aircraft if we have accurate time/date/location/direction information.
It might've been a drone with a bright light.
It might've been a flare.
The picture is simply not clear enough, and we don't have enough information, to narrow it down easily.
It's a light in the sky.
Other lights in the sky in the same picture (stars) appear blurry and unfocused, so this one probably is, too.
It also seems overexposed, which means there's a lot of glare, which means it looks larger in the picture than it actually is, and its shape is misleading.
(I tried to take a picture of the crescent moon, and all I got was a big round blurry blob.)
We can check if it was an aircraft if we have accurate time/date/location/direction information.
It might've been a drone with a bright light.
It might've been a flare.
The picture is simply not clear enough, and we don't have enough information, to narrow it down easily.
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Z.W. Wolf
Senior Member.
This seems like a long exposure of a light pillar.
- A vertical beam of light that appears to extend above or below a light source, such as the sun, moon, or streetlights, due to the reflection of light off horizontally aligned ice crystals in the atmosphere
The photo above looks to be a very long exposure and makes the light pillar look unaturally bright. The second photo is better exposed and more natural looking.
I expect that there's a single bright light source in that direction.
- A vertical beam of light that appears to extend above or below a light source, such as the sun, moon, or streetlights, due to the reflection of light off horizontally aligned ice crystals in the atmosphere
The photo above looks to be a very long exposure and makes the light pillar look unaturally bright. The second photo is better exposed and more natural looking.
I expect that there's a single bright light source in that direction.
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Z.W. Wolf
Senior Member.
https://atoptics.co.uk/blog/light-pillars/
The only thing that bothers me about it possibly being an artificial light pillar is the weather. What was the temperature like at the time?
An alternative is ordinary low clouds and a strong vertical light source.
The only thing that bothers me about it possibly being an artificial light pillar is the weather. What was the temperature like at the time?
An alternative is ordinary low clouds and a strong vertical light source.
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Thank you for the explanation. Yes, the first photo is in night mode. The second one is how it looked without night mode. There isn't anything south of me except crop land for probably 30+ miles.
Temperature
Temperature was in the 50's. There are no light sources for 30+ miles. Mostly crops and woods.
The second photo is how it looked to the naked eye. I checked flight radar and there were no planes or helicopters in the area. It didn't move either. No light sources for 30+ miles. Just crops and woods.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Not in any way saying this is the case for you observation, but we should always remember that military aircraft seem to appear on flight tracker apps at their own will. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I've tracked big C5/C17s on FlightAware as I watched them in the sky, and I've watched them in the sky with nothing on FlightAware. They do what they want.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Do you have example photos of this phenomenon?
Mendel
Senior Member.
Richmond, Missouri, is on CDT=UTC-5.
That's 01:29 UTC on May 2nd.
Airport weather report:
FEW044 = few clouds at 4,400 ft, SCT050/SCT036 = scattered clouds at 5000/3600 feet.Article: METAR/SPECI from KMCI, Kansas City, Kansas City International Airport (United States).
SA02/05/2025 00:53->METAR KMCI 020053Z 30005KT 10SM FEW044 SCT050 BKN250 17/11 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP105 T01720111=
SA01/05/2025 23:53->METAR KMCI 012353Z 29008KT 10SM SCT036 BKN250 18/11 A2985 RMK AO2 SLP103 T01830111 10228 20183 51013=
Kansas City Downtown Airport (KMKC) reported clear.
If that's the cloud layer we're seeing in the pictures, these clouds are very light and quite low.
I'd consider a spotlight beam into the cloud a possible explanation.
It would appear to dissolve/fade away as the cloud moves away and the moisture in the beam thins out.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
I expect this would require a fairly exact compass direction as well. We can work with a location that's off by half a mile or more, but a direction like "southward" covers too large an area.
Ultimately, it depends on whether it's worth it for @shari to enable us to try and find the source, which we can't guarantee we'll succeed at.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Lights pointing into the sky can have a wide range of explanations.
I saw a vertical spotlight one time from my upstairs window; it was emanating from the opening ceremony of a new nightclub about a mile and a half away (which almost immediately went bankrupt).
I've also seen light pillars; they aren't very bright, in my experience.
I saw a vertical spotlight one time from my upstairs window; it was emanating from the opening ceremony of a new nightclub about a mile and a half away (which almost immediately went bankrupt).
I've also seen light pillars; they aren't very bright, in my experience.
The first pic looks very much like a reflection, but that's not possible if it was taken outside.
The two pictures show significant cloud movement and yet when aligned the light appears to be stationary, as @shari said:
[compare]
[/compare]
Edit: looks like the "compare" tags are broken @Mick West ? Anyway hopefully the two images here should be clear enough.
The two pictures show significant cloud movement and yet when aligned the light appears to be stationary, as @shari said:
[compare]
Edit: looks like the "compare" tags are broken @Mick West ? Anyway hopefully the two images here should be clear enough.
Rayville, MO
John J.
Senior Member.
Clutching at straws here, but the Richmond MO mushroom festival 2025 kicked off on May 1st.
They had live music and a funfair, but I couldn't find any reference to a searchlight/ lightshow etc., and it would be approx. 10km/ 6 miles from Rayville, and very much to the southeast, not south:
AMOUT Richmond, Mo Annual Mushroom Festival; 45th Annual Mushroom Festival Gallery
A little closer to Rayville (approx. 4.5 km, 2.8 miles to the SSW) there's the Ray Rocks Offroad Resort, which is open on Saturdays for off-road driving fun.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rayrocksoffroadresort/
May 1st was a Thursday, not Saturday, and I can't really think of a reason there'd be a spotlight or whatever in use there, other than a place frequented mainly (I'd guess) by people with an interest in machines and with an element of self-reliant can-do (damage to vehicles off-roading there seems common) might occasionally host other technically-minded hobbyists and tinkerers, but again it's a long chalk and I've no evidence.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
A nice thread about light pillars and spotlights here.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/la...above-the-strip-light-pillar-map.12817/page-2
If the people on the ground in this location are using a bright spotlight, it could be refracting off a horizontal layer of ice particles or a thin layer of haze.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/la...above-the-strip-light-pillar-map.12817/page-2
If the people on the ground in this location are using a bright spotlight, it could be refracting off a horizontal layer of ice particles or a thin layer of haze.
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