To wonder what the hell I just saw?

[QuestionableMouse]

Looking at the moon through some new binoculars and it had a line (shadow) across the bottom bit. I've never seen anything like it!

My sister is staying atm and she saw it too so I wasn't imaging things. Nothing wrong with the binoculars and the line doesn't show up when looking at other light things.

It was very clear and distinct, looked like something was casting a shadow over the surface. I've attached a very terrible diagram 😂

(black is just where the moon is in shadow, red line is where the line/shadow was)

it was in the fucking news people!! nasa was aware and it was reported!!

@warmandtoasty2day

it was in the fucking news people!! nasa was aware and it was reported!!

Is that sarcasm or are you being genuine? Cause if it is sarcasm, it is a shitty attitude to have.

It’s, shall we say, mischievous……

Not read all comments as began to think I was reading kids responses to a question🙄. Despite knowing nothing about the moon other than watching moon landings and seeing it in the sky I actually understood what the op was trying to get across by her first picture having read what she posted. Still don't know what it could have been as just thought there were too many "oh how funny am I taking the pee out of your drawing skills" comments. Not all of us are able to clearly articulate what we are trying to get across or have the artistic skills to show what we mean in picture form.

FWIW and IMHO the original image/sketch was actually a pretty good representation of the Moon’s phase that night, the terminator (the boundary between the sunlight portion of the Moon and the bit in shadow ) is in the right place.

As for “what it was”, without opening that can of worms again what was highly highly likely one of three things. All have been mentioned in the thread, a couple of them, one or the other, highly highly likely the cause, the third one very much less so.

None of the highly probable reasons are exotic or extraterrestrial in origin.

notimagain
Well come on! Which is your likely cause?
You can't cop out like that.

"Most pointless OP ever. You don't have a pic of what you saw"

Why do I get the feeling some pp's, didn't progress beyond picture books? And yet they seem to think the op is the stupid one..?

saveimport it was on the news, nasa suggested that the moon is strinking and that cracks are developing in the outer crust. hardly sarcastic and my shitty attiude ?

@warmandtoasty2day

saveimport it was on the news, nasa suggested that the moon is strinking and that cracks are developing in the outer crust. hardly sarcastic and my shitty attiude ?

No “it” darned well wasn’t on the news, no the line the OP saw wasn’t already known to NASA.

The “cracks” in the news have been observed over a period of several years by a satellite (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO, which is in low orbit around the Moon…they’re a few dozen meters high at most and maybe 10 km long..

You simply won’t see cracks of that size from your back garden through binoculars from Earth..

Strinking? Ah yes, that explains it

@ShitPoetryClub

notimagain Well come on! Which is your likely cause? You can't cop out like that.

Well I cop’d in and bored everybody upthread, but FWIW, to précis-

In the absence of any more info from the OP but taking what we do know and running it through planetarium software and also doing a look back on one of the flight tracker apps:

Option 1. Strongest candidate (very strong candidate) is a aircraft contrail, most probably from an Emirates flight that plodded up the North Sea to the east of the OP not long before they made the initial post, less likely is that it’s from a flight that came out of Edinburgh and overflow Newcastle just before half past midnight.

Option 2. Very distant wires/cables (could be several kilometers distant)

Option 3. Odd atmospheric refraction effect (Moon was fairly low in sky).

@notimagain

Thank you for the helpful and interesting posts!

I'm a long way south of Newcastle (~40 miles) so would your theory still work with that?

Hi

many thanks for getting back

That location could well work but I can’t look at it in detail until much later today…I’m not sure how “good” the Mumsnet clock is but I see your OP was timed at about 25 min after midnight, UK time, Morning of Friday 30th…given it must have taken a few minutes to get the image/sketch done would a guess that you and your sister first saw the line just after midnight be reasonable?

Jeez, some really rude comments on her to the OP

I knew what you meant from your initial post OP. I’m really fascinated with anything space related. Wish I knew what it was too.

@QuestionableMouse

Ok…sums done for a location 40ish south of Newcastle and cutting as quickly as I can to the chase:

Moonrise would have been at 2330 BST on the Thursday night and It would have been almost due east of you (actually a small number of left of east from your POV.)

The Moon then would have appeared to head slowly up and right and by the time you made your OP at 0025 BST it would have been about 7 degrees above the horizon, but still almost due east , now just right (south) of east….

Meantime Emirates 9961 heads northwest over the western North Sea and at about 2344 BST (2244 GMT), 14 minutes after moonrise it would have been 90 miles due east of you low in the eastern sky - from somewhere 40 ish miles south of Newcastle at the altitude it was at it would have left a contrail that appeared to be approx 3 or so degrees, plus or minus, above the horizon from where you were ..darned darned close to where the Moon was at that time…

The exact number of degrees above the horizon the contrail would appear would be very dependent on your exact position and how long the contrail stayed sharp and how/if it drifted would depend on the high level weather on the day, but all in all it still looks likethe contrail is still the strongest contender for what you saw.

Hope that helps.