25 replies to this topic

[ddegroot]

Hi everyone,

At around 9:10 PM (EST) tonight, while observing the Moon through my Takahashi FC-100DC in Washington, DC, I had my most perplexing sighting in 20+ years of amateur astronomy. 

As I watched at around 150x, a perfectly black, sharply defined circle started moving slowly across the Moon, almost like the transit of a planet in front of the Sun. When it reached the edge of the Moon, it slowly turned back and started moving in the opposite direction across the surface of the Moon. It then meandered slowly and smoothly around the lunar disk. When I turned up the magnification, it got bigger; when I reduced magnification, it got smaller. I checked my lens for dust - though I knew it couldn't be that - and found nothing (the telescope is new). Eventually, I looked away from my eyepiece for a moment. When I looked again, the circle was gone. 

 

I cannot explain what I saw, but happily I took many pictures and videos. I've included just two pictures in this message, but you can find much more at my website, by clicking here.

 

Does anyone have any idea what I might have seen? The only thing I can think of is, maybe, a balloon at just the right distance away . . . but that seems implausible. I'm at a loss. Help? 

UPDATE: thanks to Michael Rudenko at Harvard, I now know that I observed one of Google's stratospheric balloons, for Project Loon. What a coincidence - and what a sighting! Here's another. 

Thanks, 
D

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Edited by ddegroot, 14 October 2019 - 09:52 PM.

[Dynan]

 

No, really, it's an interesting post! I'd like to know the explanation.

[agmoonsolns]

Does this explain it or are we talking about something entirely different? 

 

https://archive.org/...abethCouncelman

 

 

 

[kingjamez]

I saw a weather balloon many years ago being lit by the sun at high altitudes... got really freaked out. It wasn’t in front of the moon, but otherwise sounds very similar. That’s my gues.

[agmoonsolns]

Weather balloons in the general direction you were looking with some ending up moving/floating around in your line of sight and appearing to be on/near the moon?

[fcathell]

Weather balloon is my guess since it tended to wander around and it appears to have the shape of a balloon if you look closely.

 

Frank

[Thomas Marshall]

The 'Default' position in 'Birding' for an unknown Hawk is 'Red Tail Hawk'. For 'Unknown Flying Objects', - it's "Weather Balloon". Not to start a fight over whether it actually is a 'Weather Balloon' or not. It's not 'Swamp Gas' - at least we can be confident of that. It's "Unknown" to me.  

[Littlegreenman]

That's cool. A weather balloon might explain some binocular sights I had 15 years ago in the late afternoon. Although there were two several degrees apart, maybe Iridium satellites.

I've seen flocks of birds between me and the moon, and bats too.

[fcathell]

If it were rectangular with sides in the ratio of 1:3:9, I would be, maybe, "concerned".

 

Frank

[Dynan]

If it were rectangular with sides in the ratio of 1:3:9, I would be, maybe, "concerned".

 

Frank

*1:4:9

[fcathell]

By George you are correct - 1:4:9 - squares of the first 3 integers.  Where did I get 3 ???

 

Frank

[markb]

I am posting after the Project Loon explanation was posted.

 

Visible objects crossing the Moon's disc can be more common than many people would expect, particularly during migration season.

 

'Flocks of birds' and 'bats' reminded me of one of the more bizarre things I picked up while a bio undergrad many years back. Bizarre because the birds crossing the Moon's disc were way more frequent than I ever expected, and because the data could be analyzed so easily.

 

We were located on a migration flyway, and a l o o n g evening was spent with 7x50s counting the black shapes of birds and, presumably, bats crossing the face of the full moon, calling out direction and clockface crossing markers.

 

A relatively simple mathematical reduction of the data provided the true directions of travel to show they migrated south even at night.

 

Amazing what shows up at night.

[agmoonsolns]

We were right, it was a balloon!

 

https://earthsky.org...oon-feb-10-2017

[agmoonsolns]

There should be a contest to see who can post the best photos of it.

[Ken Watts]

This is a very interesting thread.  The only balloons I have seen were the stratospheric research ones with a tether to an instrument package.  The payload was visible even in good binoculars.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Clear and steady skies!

 

Ken W

[BeltofOrion]

Of course, if had been an extraterrestrial object on ... or near ... the moon's surface, it would have been visible from more than one viewing area on the earth. Would have been kinda' large, too ... but I guess there could be very large ETs.

 

When something like this happens, though, I know from experience it makes the old ticker speed up just a little bit. A week or so ago I was actually making a video of the moon with the 70mm SolarMax III and this dark object quickly passed from the lower right quadrant to the upper left. I could barely wait to take a look. When I converted the video into frames with PIPP, it turned out to be a bird. I could actually make out when the wings were up ... and then held close to the body so that it looked torpedo shaped. Identification was helped by the fact that I've taken a few shots of birds flying ... in the daylight, of course.

 

Never know what you're gonna' see, though. Right?

Edited by BeltofOrion, 15 October 2019 - 05:42 PM.

[Astroman007]

Astronomers have been seeing things like that for centuries. I have many of those sightings compiled in a list. Some...some very few...have truly and fully pursued them to their very essence.

 

You saw something amazing. A great experience!

 

Meanwhile, here, I keep watching the Moon...

[Tom Stock]

That is really cool. Would have had me freaking out too.

 

My advice, call "Ancient Aliens" producers immediately and sell your photos to them and tell a great story just leave out the part about the balloon. lInstead mumble something about humans and intergalactic frozen dinners.

[Tom Barnacle]

The observation described in the initial post is interesting, and the explanation as being that of a stratospheric balloon would appear initially to be the most parsimonious. However one aspect of this explanation perplexes me. I would expect the stratospheric winds to be fairly constant in direction at the heights quoted for the Loon balloons of between 18 and 25kms. The low wind velocities at this altitude would account for the relatively sedate progress of the object seen, but how do we account for the changes of direction observed which included movement in the opposite direction? It appears that these balloons altitude can be controlled remotely to adjust their latitude and longitude by altering the gas content of the envelope, but would such a process result in apparent meandering movement seen? Or did the balloon encounter a particularly turbulent pocket of air which buffeted it about causing alterations in its trajectory, and if it did what are the chances of this occurring whilst the balloon was on the line of sight between the observer, his Tak, his camera and the illuminated disc of the moon? If these anomalies in behaviour cannot be accounted for maybe a balloon is not the most parsimonious explanation after all. Is there a stratospheric scientist in the house that could assist?

 

A curious observation and well worth discussing.

 

Regards, Tom.

[agmoonsolns]

What if it was in the process of going up or coming down, in that case it would be experiencing different wind speeds and wind directions as it progresses through the different air layers.

[Tom Barnacle]

What if it was in the process of going up or coming down, in that case it would be experiencing different wind speeds and wind directions as it progresses through the different air layers.

This is certainly an important factor that needs to be considered in relation to the original observation. Additionally the observer saw the object projected against the disc of the moon and could only record movement in two dimensions, so we do not know anything about the component of the trajectory along the line of sight. This could potentially provide an incorrect impression of the actual movement. In the video's of the observation the object can be see to be moving slightly erratically when it passes Kepler and heads towards Reiner Gamma - with slight changes of course which appears to be a bit odd - but again if it is ascending or descending in to layers of air with different horizontal velocities this might give the illusion of an erratic flight. The reversal of direction however needs a bit more thought - but again such an apparent reversal in course might not translate to a real reversal due to the effect of perspective along the line of sight.

 

Tom. 

[Steve Cox]

That is really cool. Would have had me freaking out too.

 

My advice, call "Ancient Aliens" producers immediately and sell your photos to them and tell a great story just leave out the part about the balloon. lInstead mumble something about humans and intergalactic frozen dinners.

And don't forget to defocus your photos to make them really fuzzy before you sell them to the AA producers.

[havasman]

Back in the '70's we regularly saw Wx balloons ~low in the western sky in the hours before sunset. They were very bright and moved about as though carried along by the breezes. 

 

But there were often strange sightings in the '70's and another unexplained, apparently visible object wasn't much of a concern for us. A news story about the phenom was triggered by concerned inquiries by others and explained everything. The launch site west of town was key.

[Astroman007]

That is really cool. Would have had me freaking out too.

 

My advice, call "Ancient Aliens" producers immediately and sell your photos to them and tell a great story just leave out the part about the balloon. lInstead mumble something about humans and intergalactic frozen dinners.

And don't forget to defocus your photos to make them really fuzzy before you sell them to the AA producers.

Oh boy.  

 

Obfuscation, even as a "prank" or for "fun," is no laughing matter. I wouldn't even joke about contributing to it.

[RalphMeisterTigerMan]

Curious! Every weather or high altitude balloon I have ever seen pics or vids of are a shortened "tear-drop" shape. How many of you have ever seen a perfectly spherically shaped or round balloon?

 

I do not have a good explanation of what is shown in the pic, unless one of the rival countries in the current "race to the moon" have placed a very, very large round satellite in lunar orbit and what we are seeing is the "shadow transit" of this fictional round satellite?

 

Also, wouldn't any high altitude balloon or satellite reflect light rather than be shown as a "shadow"?

 

Something is fishy in Denmark. Sure sounds rotten to me. 

 

Well, we have to do something! Let's go burn down the Observatory so that this sort of thing never happens again! LOL!

RalphMeisterTigerMan