hey. I live in Toronto, Ontario and I saw something weird on Saturday night..
(July 31 2004)
my friend and I were walking to a restaurant to have some dinner, and the moon was out at full..
it was a hunter's moon, orange/red in colour.
slowly,
i noticed a black line extending from the right hand side of the face of the moon.
very thin..in distance ratio, about as far away as the moon itself, and, only about a centimeter in width (remember the distance ratio, so it must have been large to have been noticed anyways)

well, it slowly worked it's way from the right hand side, across the face, until finally, it extended from the right hand side to the left hand side.
it was a bit below the center of the face of the moon.
there was nothing blocking our vision (my friend noted this too), such as telephone wires, etc.
and the possibility of it being a cloud is almost nonsense, as clouds do not usually appear as thin black lines that cross over the face of the moon.

in a visual, picture the line being no different than something like this :
--------------------------------
going across the face of the moon.

after extending entirely across the face from right to left, it began to vanish from the right hand side, and finally dissapeared off to the left hand side.
i stood totally still to ensure that it wasn't moving with my movements, as sometimes objects seem to move as we move...
but even standing still it continued it's course of action, and as I stated, finally vanished off to the left hand side.

I was curious if anyone has any suggestions as to what this is,
or if anyone else noticed it?

hope to hear from people soon,

K

interesting sighting. I have no idea what it could have been, i wish i had seen it myself. How long did it take to go from one end to the other? was it completely across the moon or was it smaller?(less long than the moon's width)

Welcome to the forum btw

Living in Ottawa, the moon weould have been the same colour as toronto as far as i know. Not only did i see nothing, but it was definately never a orange/red moon in colour. It was as pale as can be all night. That's from here at least.

Good story tho. Interesting.

I have no idea what it could be. I didn't even get to see the moon, becuase where I am (montreal, Quebec) it was cloudy. But I heard that the moon was supposed to be a blue moon, because there was two full moons this in july.

I saw the hunter's moon, but not that black line,


weird

I live in Toronto too, but I don't recall the moon being any thing other than normal in colour ...but I saw it pretty late.

Hey!

Thanks for everyone's interest.

I can't exactly explain it myself, but, in response to the first question asked..
it spanned from one side of the moon to the other at one point.

picture..
that emoticon face there, and the line it has for a mouth. except, imagine the sides of the mouth reached each end of the face. and that's what it was, for a brief period, before going off the left hand side.
as the line was black, it became impossible to see after vanishing off the side of the hunter's moon, where it must have mingled with the rest of the sky.

also, i find it weird. i've done some searching on any moon sightings on July 31st 2004, and as someone above stated, it was supposed to be a blue moon. I can't say I saw any blue moon, although it may have been at one point.

When it was a hunter's moon, i saw the line between 9:00-10:00 PM..we left the restaurant later, around 12:00 AM (or shortly before), and the moon was back to it's pale old self as well.

hmm...well I do hope people keep reading and someone has seen the same thing.
thanks to everyone else! i'll keep checking back for more input..if you're not sure of what i'm talking about or want me to clarify any points for you, I'd be happy to respond.

thanks,

K

Ok I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but could it have been a telephone line or powerline that you saw?

Dot

The term 'blue moon' isn't meant as a definition of color, rather, it's a descriptive phrase used when two full moons occur in the same month. It's a takeoff of the phrase 'once in a blue moon' to define the rariety of its occurance. It happens once every two and a half years.

MM

See...........I even had my secretary of astronomical phenomena confirm it for you.

Thanks, Tigger.

Well, I know it seems likely that it could have been a powerline.

But can you really explain how, from someone's point of view, standing still..
a powerline or telephone wire could appear on one side of the moon, work it's way across, span the entire face and then vanish off to one side?

I agree, maybe if you were moving.

also it was much too thick at that distance to be a powerline or telephone wire..

telephone wires, powerlines and clouds were my initial thoughts, but i ruled them all out..that's why i posted in here =P
to see if anyone can surmise any better answers.. (and no I wasn't on crack! so don't use that as an answer plz lol)

It's true that there could be a rather logical explanation for it.
But, I've not thought any up yet.

(also, the only powerlines etc i saw, i made sure they weren't what i was seeing..it's a shame my friend didn't bring his webcam..or i could have recorded this.)


What i found odd was that it looks like the kinda "glitch" line you see on programming when graphics in a game or movie screw up.
just not with jerky movements.

K

My father borrowed one of my cameras this past weekend, He took a bunch of pics of the the sky and the moon while he was in the adirondaks..

He took almost 1500 pics.. I'll have to mow through them and see if I see anything like this in them.

I know he saw the hunter moon..

I'm getting everything back on thursday, I'll check then.

Hey hey. Well actually, from what i've seen, the "blue moon" is in fact,
almost blue in colour..here's a link
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/im...on/Kostian1.jpg
and another..
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/rjn/apod/ap040731.html

so..dunno about what you said there..-shrugs-

Anywho. As for those moon pics, i kinda prey you'll find one similar to
what i spoke of. If not, i suppose i'll just hafta accept that nobody
else saw this and get on with life
lol

Hope to hear from pplz soon =)

K

both of those pictures have been edited to make the moon blue

In fact, your second link goes on to explain that "blue moon" is simply a term used to describe 2 full moons in a month.

Sorry guess I missed it. Everything was fine in my area, at least that I know of.

Here is a likely explanation: The black line was a jet trail.

Jet trails can appear very thin, especially if seen low in the sky, where the plane will tend to be farther away and the trail is seen nearly edge on (was the moon low in the sky?). Furthermore the trail would seem to slowly extend itself from one side of the moon to the other as the jet passed in front of the moon. If atmospheric conditions are right the trail would not last long, and would peter out at a certain distance behind the plane, hence the other end would seem to move past the moon a little while later, and the line would disappear. During the daytime you may have seen white jet trails that disappear at a certain distance behind the jet, as apposed to hanging in the sky for a long time. They appear almost like short, solid white lines that are moving across the sky. At night they would, of course, appear dark, just like any other cloud. This would also explain why no-one else saw it: they would have had to be standing within the small area (my guess is within a few miles of your location) where the jet trail seemed to line up with the moon.

I think that what you saw it was condense(pls correct it if it's spelt wrong) left behind by a plane. Think about it....