My brother was driving home late in the evening when he noticed something unusual glowing behind a thick layer of clouds. He was only about 21 kilometers from our house, so he pulled over and took several photos before the strange light disappeared. In every shot, a bright curved object seemed to be hanging above the dark trees.
At first, we couldn’t understand what we were looking at. The clouds were moving quickly, and a bright patch of light appeared to surround the object. From a distance, the curved shape almost looked like something hovering inside the storm, especially because most of the sky around it was completely dark.
The answer became clearer after looking carefully at the sequence of photographs. The mysterious object was actually the crescent Moon partially obscured by fast-moving clouds. Thin sections of cloud allowed the Moon’s light to shine through while thicker areas blocked most of its familiar shape.
The glowing area surrounding it was also caused by moonlight scattering through moisture and tiny droplets in the clouds. Combined with the darkness, the bare trees, and the phone camera’s exposure, the ordinary crescent Moon took on a surprisingly dramatic appearance.
So there was nothing hovering above the neighborhood and nothing mysterious approaching our house. My brother had simply captured the Moon under an unusually perfect combination of clouds and light—turning an everyday sight in the night sky into something that looked completely unfamiliar.
