What was this above the sun this morning??

a reply to: Rob48


Yes -- Thank you for the clarifying post.

I, too, have seen young moons around sunset with plenty of earthshine -- but like you said, any earthshine from the moon as close to the Sun as the "object" in the OP's image would by obscured by the sun's glare.

originally posted by: wildespace

originally posted by: OpenEars123
from inside my lounge

I think that's the explanation. It's a reflection of the sun in the lounge windows. When you go outside and see this with your own eyes, without the involvement of a camera or windows, then it would be a real thing (but still most probably just an atmospheric phenomenon like sun dogs)

Right, the windows are acting like a "filter" producing the reflection of the sun. Normally in photography this can be achieved outside as well with a filter on the front of the lens (any piece of glass in front of the lens will do).

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

It isn't impossible, I have seen it. About two thirds of the moon was visible white and you could barely see the rest of it but you could. Now I'm not sure how this has happened, but I have seen it happen while working in the back yard a couple of years ago. I saw it many years ago also. It was more in the morning both times, maybe around ten o'clock. Now I am guessing about ten degrees, It could have been a little more, maybe about 13 degrees.

Maybe a reflection off of Lake superior hit the moon or something, I do not know. The sun wasn't even that bright that day a couple of years ago. I have seen pictures on the net with the moon and sun in them, I looked to see if I was seeing something special, I guess it is nothing special...there were quite a few pictures.

It looked like this, but there was a visible edge to the dark side. www.universetoday.com...

a reply to: rickymouse

I understand now. I was talking about a Moon being fully-lit or nearly fully lit directly by the Sun. When the moon is close to the Sun in our sky, it can only possibly be a crescent moon..

However, as Rob48 correctly pointed out, Earthshine can still light up the entire crescent moon, even if only that crescent part is the part being directly lit by the Sun. Earthshine is caused by the Earth reflecting sunlight back to the moon.

Having said all that, the image in the OP is just a camera reflection.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Yeah, that is kind of obvious that this OP is from a lens issue.. I just wanted to point out that the moon could be seen not too far from the sun occasionally. Even with the ten to thirteen degree difference in the sky at the time I am referring to, I doubt if I could have got the sun and moon in the same picture, unless I actually held a disk or something to block the sun so it wouldn't darkenthe camera shutter.

I wonder how come some days the sun seems so much dimmer than other days. In this case, the moon was pretty bright, so that means it was not something in the sky blocking the sun like clouds because it would have blocked the moon. Although, the clouds could have ended by the sun, I suppose that is possible.

a reply to: rickymouse

What's interesting for me is the fact that I happened to see the same thing on the morning of the post -- through my wide open window. Very early in the morning. As I posted earlier i as a bit confused.

I do not think that it was a lens flair. Your SAMSUNG GT-I9505 did not give enough information for me to determine the location of where that picture was taken at 5:16 and 25 seconds on the 5. I do know that there was an eruption on the sun that might have actually been caught by your camera. Here is the Suspicious0bservers youtube on this event along with the other morning information. He puts this stuff out every morning and I never miss it.

S0 News June 5, 2014 | Filament Eruption

a reply to: remembering

Hmm. "Rob48" made a pretty good argument for confirming this was a lens reflection with this post (linked below):

www.abovetopsecret.com...