NUFORC Sighting 160421

Occurred: 2020-11-04 18:00 Local
Reported: 2020-11-04 19:08 Pacific
Duration: 20 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Riverside, CA, USA

Shape: Other

Crescent moving NW over Riverside CA

I am the only witness I know of. I am an astrophysicist and can usually explain these things. I was not in any way inebriated when I saw this.

At approximately 6pm I was taking my trash out and looked up to admire the stars. I noticed something moving across the sky. It was crescent shaped, dim, and about 5" across. It moved across about 45 degrees of sky in 10 to 20 seconds in a northwest direction. It did not change shape or brightness.

I tried to surmise whether it was something low and hovering (a drone or maybe a group of birds moving pretty quick) or higher and moving very quickly. I thought perhaps I wasn't seeing it clearly at first but after a few seconds I could see a clear cresent shape. The lighting on it did not change in a way I would expect if it was low. I decided it was probably a bow shock catching the sun (now set)'s light like a noctilucent cloud. However I am unfamiliar with what produces such long lived and steadily moving bowshock. I did not see that there were any vandenburg launches when I looked after.

One other odd note: as I was watching it a meteor passed through it (diagonally vaguely ENE and at a very different soured of course so I assumed it was unrelated).

I'm very interested in optical phenomena and as I said am an astronomer so I usually explain these things easily. This time while I suppose a jet or something might produce such a bow shock I am a little baffled so I thought I should report it.

Posted 2020-12-23