What do you think of this pic my daughter took?

June 2, 2012







My daughter and I were shopping, wanted to get a picture of this red beam in the sky, it was one of those pink sky at night nights.....this beam stayed there about 5 minutes...it was there when we left.....

When looking at the pic later we saw the square shape "thing" in the sky.....wasn't visible to the naked eye.

The zoomed out pic is an additional pic not a duplicate, shows the parking lot lights, they don't line up with square in the sky....

Pic was taken on an iphone.

reply to post by timetothink

Beautiful maybe link it

reply to post by sd211212


Sorry hit enter by accident...

Possibly reflections of street lights. Have seen them many times on here. Not certain though, because the "reflections" look grouped together. Maybe a photographer would know...

Maybe the grouping is because the reflections are coming off the vehicles????

reply to post by VeniVidi


That's what I thought at first too..but I don't know if they line up and do you get flares on an iphone??

Plus that red beam thingy was really what caught our eye.

That's why I put it in the gray area....2 weird things...

Looks awesome to me, nice catch!

What on earth is that beam? Is it normal... If not I'm gunna guess its summin to do with the... Dare I say it.. UFO

reply to post by Sinny


I know!! What is it....it didn't move with the clouds....just sat there.

reply to post by timetothink

The red beam in the center resembles, IMO, a Crepuscular Ray from a below the horizon setting sun.

Crepuscular Rays

And the four lights in the sky appear to correlate, IMO, with the 4-bulb parking lot lights (corect me if I am wrong about these lights) due to internal reflections between the protective external plate glass and the lens assembly in the iPhone.

Thank you and best regards,
Z

reply to post by DrZrD


The sun was setting behind our backs....does that still line up with what you said? And it wasn't below the horizon yet...is they a way to access the time on the pic..from the image info?

i can't be certain since im not a photographer/image expert, but I'm confident that the 4 lights in the sky are some sort of reflection of the lights from the closest light post. There are 4 lights at the top of the post which are in the exact arrangement of the lights in the sky.

Again, I'm no expert, but the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

ETA: Cool pic BTW

reply to post by timetothink

Right click the picture in Windows and select properties, one will be the time of capture assuming the camera's clock is set correctly. Alternately, download a free EXIF metadata viewer to examine the metadata attached to the picture by the camera.

Normally Crepuscular Rays are brightest in the direction of the setting sun. I do not know if this applies, but, if the sun had not set yet then a straight ray through smoke or dust could easily have produced a bright red ray seen in the exact opposite direction.

Best regards,
Z

I'm sorry but I dont buy "Its a reflection caused by.."

Whenever a good pic appears a mass of people pile in shouting "Its a reflection". If reflections happened so easily we'd have trouble taking even the simplest of photographs. Modern camera's are quite good at NOT creating reflections. Sure it does happen but not witht the frequency we see being claimed on these threads.

Nice pic by the way. I think the four objects are there but the red beam causes me to ask whether you could see it before you took the photo?

looks like bird too me. flying in formation

Originally posted by timetothink
When looking at the pic later we saw the square shape "thing" in the sky.....wasn't visible to the naked eye.

The four lights forming the square are Lens flare reflections:



The source of the reflection can be found by drawing two diagonal lines on the picture.

The center of the photo, where the lines crossed up is the "central symmetrical reflection point" from where another line can be drawn from the reflection to the source.

Similar examples:





This red beam is interesting... To the OP: do you remember where the sun was at the time you took the photo?

Could be a light pillar



Light pillars can also occur near the light of the moon or streetlights, as long as ice crystals are floating in the air near you.
It usually happens when the sun is low in the sky, and sometimes even after it has set.

reply to post by VoidHawk


We took the pic for the red beam....the square of lights was not visible at all...and we were standing there about 5 minutes waiting to see if the beam was clouds and if they dispersed...they did not, we had to leave.

reply to post by elevenaugust


The sun was behind us as we took the picture slightly behind the 3 story Macy's where we were shopping.

Thank you everyone for the replies...even though my daughter will be dissapointed if it's not...ya know...a "UFO"