NUFORC Sighting 180014

Occurred: 2024-01-12 15:45 Local
Reported: 2024-01-14 05:01 Pacific
Duration: 2 seconds (?)
No of observers: 1

Location: Grahamsville, NY, USA
Location details: DEC Bald Eagle Observation Site

Shape: Cigar
Color: Grey - Black
Estimated Size: ?
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: SW
Angle of Elevation: 25
Closest Distance: ?
Estimated Speed: ?
Explanation: Aircraft - Possible

After doing some eagle photography object was seen at home when images were viewed from the SD card

These images are the first and last photos of a 10 image burst taken with a Canon R7 mirrorless camera using a 400mm telephoto lens. They are smaller versions of the original and unprocessed jpeg files. I also have raw files of the same sequence. I was doing some wildlife photography at the DEC eagle observing parking area along rte. 55a just outside of Grahamsville along the Rondout Reservoir. Fortunately an eagle was perched nearby to the south of me making for an easy target. Eventually the eagle flew from its perch and I tried to follow it with my camera as it left the area. When I got home I looked at the images and luckily I caught some decent images of the fly away. After looking at the sequence I noticed an elongated object in the distance that appeared in all ten of the frames. At first I thought it may be a smudge on the lens but its position changed as I panned with the eagle. After looking more carefully the object does seem like it moved slightly to the right during the sequence. Could it be a plane? The images were taken between 3:30 and 4:00 so the natural light was waning. The date and time on the metadata for the images are not correct. The camera is brand new and I did not set the date and time on it yet. The camera was set at its highest burst rate (15 fps). The entire sequence is 10 consecutive frames so maybe a second of time. The SD card has a write rate of 200mb/sec. I do not remember any sound from an airplane or jet at the time although I can't be 100% sure as I was concentrating on taking pictures. I send the images and summary to Linda Zimmermann for further examination.

Posted 2024-02-15