Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder what the hell I just saw?

240 replies

QuestionableMouse · 30/07/2021 00:25

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)

To wonder what the hell I just saw?
OP posts:
Thread gallery
9
MyShoelaceIsUndone · 30/07/2021 19:29

The moon is as flat as the earth and the sun

notimagain · 31/07/2021 07:46

Hi

Thanks for that.

Can I check my understanding of the description/drawing?

You saw a thin, sharply defined line that appeared to run across the whole illuminated portion of the Moon’s face, about a third/quarter of the way from the bottom?

Mrstreehouse · 31/07/2021 09:19

What do you think it is OP? If not a contrail? What’s your explanation?

notimagain · 31/07/2021 10:52

Because I love a good puzzle I’ve put astronomy (hobby) hat down and picks up hat from former job in aviation….

Winding back to the start of the thread it looks like the OP posted at around 0025 uk local time Friday, and the flight radar app screen snapshot taken about 20 minutes later would indicate that they are located maybe north of Newcastle on Tyne….

If you run the Planefinder app (not “flight radar”) back to the night if I’ve got it right at about 0025 UK time there was an Aegean airlines flight out of Edinburgh overflying that part of the world heading south eastwards. The aircraft itself tracked just south of Morpeth but the winds at altitude that would probably make any contrails move southwards in the direction of Newcastle.

That could well take them across the line of sight of anybody looking at the Moon from the part of the world the OP seems to be in.

Some contrails can and do remain sharp edged and well defined for quite some time.

Given we can rule out anything extra terrestrial (I’m open minded but not that much) and given the OP has ruled out cables and wires then if those times and rough locations I have worked on are correct I’d suggest Occam’s razor would suggest the line was an aircraft contrail.

notimagain · 31/07/2021 10:58

P.S. Open to having sums checked and corrections on timings but I’m aware too much info from the OP could be outing….

Jackgrealishscurtains · 31/07/2021 11:13

@QuestionableMouse

I don't think it was a contrail - it was very crisp and sharp and every pic of contrails I've seen looks more fluffy/blurred.

There are no cables or power lines in that direction and the moon was much higher than the trees.

Not my first time using binoculars, by a long shot. They're just a new pair I picked up for the kids so they don't use my good ones.

But you understand that it must be something between you and the moon, not something on the moon? Because if it were actually on the moon, even as a shadow, and had gone all the way across, it would have been curved to follow the curvature of the moon?

If the plane had just passed, the contrail would be very thin and crisp.

H8H8H8 · 31/07/2021 12:09

This is bonkers 🤣🤣🤣

OP no one can see a shadow - just the ms paint style lines you have drawn all over the picture. How can anyone comment?

clickychicky · 31/07/2021 12:19

@H8H8H8

This is bonkers 🤣🤣🤣

OP no one can see a shadow - just the ms paint style lines you have drawn all over the picture. How can anyone comment?

Have you RTFT?
rainbowunicorn · 31/07/2021 12:42

@H8H8H8

This is bonkers 🤣🤣🤣

OP no one can see a shadow - just the ms paint style lines you have drawn all over the picture. How can anyone comment?

At least take the time to read the OP's posts and updates before trying to be a smart arse. You are not funny or original. There are at least 50 other people before you who think they are dead clever with the sneary comments.
Changemaname1 · 31/07/2021 13:13

My lord some of the responses on here , really not that hard to understand what op is saying . Fml

Sorry tho op no idea what the line could be

MollyMinniesMum · 31/07/2021 17:26

Clouds?

linsey2581 · 31/07/2021 17:37

its probably the markings from the craters.

ChelleMum85 · 31/07/2021 17:45

@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)

More than likely a satellite in front of it/direct line of sight making it appear as a shadow.
notimagain · 31/07/2021 17:54

Clouds don’t produce a straight line like that (if that’s what the OP saw) TBH It would be great if they would drop in again to clarify a couple of questions.

For a couple of reasons (possible time of moonrise, orientation of the line as drawn) I’m coming back to the line being being due to distant wires/cables, perhaps several kilometers from the OP and the sister, or the other possibility is the previously mentioned aircraft’s contrail.

It’s pretty much impossible to sensibly rationalize it as being anything more exotic than one of those two but we’ll probably never know which one for sure.

notimagain · 31/07/2021 17:57

More than likely a satellite in front of it/direct line of sight making it appear as a shadow

More than very very likely not…

Satellites in orbit around the Moon don’t produce shadows visible from earth..the largest satellite in orbit around the Earth only ever appears a a dot to use down here (see the previous posted video of ISS crossing the face of the Moon).

Missingashoe · 31/07/2021 18:28

😂 I think I understand - you don’t have a picture if what you actually saw but are trying to indicate with squiggles.... is that it...?
Most likely explanation, I think, is a hair across the lens.

Lokdok · 31/07/2021 18:33

Lol what!? You’ve scribbled over the bit the arrow points to.

H8H8H8 · 31/07/2021 20:19

Have you RTFT?

At least take the time to read the OP's posts and updates before trying to be a smart arse. You are not funny or original. There are at least 50 other people before you who think they are dead clever with the sneary comments

I have read the OPs posts and updates, yes.

I’m not trying to be a smart arse, funny, dead clever or sneary. Unlike some, it seems.

I simply have no idea why the OP chose to annotate that picture in that way to describe what they saw, or - given that picture - how they could expect anyone could say with any degree of certainty what it was. A simple description in the OP would surely have been more effective.

Carpedimum · 31/07/2021 20:57

Forgive me if this has already been suggested, I’ve not RTFT. Could it be the Lunar Terminator Illusion?

Polkadots2021 · 31/07/2021 21:01

@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)

This really made me laugh.
MyrtlethePurpleTurtle · 31/07/2021 21:01

Hi, OP - this phenomenon you describe seems to have been noticed by others and debated online. Not quite sure why the scoffing

Contrail seems the most likely

To wonder what the hell I just saw?
swimlyn · 31/07/2021 23:28

Waxing Gibbous.

atlastifoundit · 01/08/2021 01:17

I'm with others who say contrail.

notimagain · 01/08/2021 07:37

@Carpedimum

Forgive me if this has already been suggested, I’ve not RTFT. Could it be the Lunar Terminator Illusion?
That illusion doesn’t manifest itself as a line across the Moon.
notimagain · 01/08/2021 08:19

@atlastifoundit

I'm with others who say contrail.
FWIW in the half hour or so prior the the OP’s first post, which was just after midnight Thursday/Friday two aircraft flew north, up the north sea, off the eastern side of NE England…

One, a Lufthansa flight, was a long way east and probably not visible from the UK but shortly thereafter an Emirates flight went north closer offshore that would almost certainly laid a nice fresh, horizontal contrail low in the sky to the east of anyone in NE England.

At about the same time from that part of the UK the Moon would have been rising/would be a few degrees (very few) above the horizon in the eastern sky.

Now I must write out 100 times “I am not over invested in this thread”