Strange "blue tube" object near Blood Wolf Super Moon identified.
When this witness took a sequence of photographs of the 'Blood Wolf Super Moon' in Jan 2019, some of them showed what was described as a "blue tube" in the sky near the Moon, and sometimes a spurious "green ball “could also be seen on the photographs. The witness did not observe these objects with the naked eye at the time of taking the photographs, which is usually a good clue for us that they are an 'optical effect' of some kind rather than 'real' objects. After checking with the witness that the photographs were not taken through a window (to rule out reflections of lights behind appearing on the glass) my investigation unfolded as below in an evaluation sent to the witness.
Many thanks for confirming you took the pictures from outside and not through any glass windows. I was just checking so I can rule out anything reflecting onto a glass window from lights behind you, and I now have all the information I need in order to try and explain the finer details of exactly what I think we are looking at and what caused it. This is not going to be a short explanation as there are three separate issues raised in this case to address involving your report and the four photographs you sent to me, and things may get a little complex as we move along but I will try to start with the easier bits first.
1) I agree with your thoughts that the 'fog' which can be seen on picture 750 (2nd of 4) but not on the following picture 751 (both taken within the same minute 05:10) is probably your breath condensing in the cold air. The fog/mist is definitely localised close to you and seems to be radiating out from a point just below the camera in a rough arc shape away from you, highly suggestive of condensed breath on a cold morning illuminated by the auto flash I would say.
2) The two small 'stars' in the sky directly in line with the Moon which are best seen in the 1st picture (747) and the 4th, but can also be seen in 750 & 751 just underneath the green ball (more about the green ball later) are probably the 'twins' in the constellation of Gemini - see right hand side next to Moon on screen shot below of online sky-chart for that date & time from your location.
3) Now this is the interesting bit. The object which you call a "blue tube" can be seen in the first 3 of the 4 pictures, and if you look closely there is what appears to be a smaller version of it that can be seen in the 2nd & 3rd pictures 'on the wall' to the left of the moon. The "green ball" also appears on pics 2 & 3 only.
None of these spurious 'lights in the sky' in pics 1, 2 & 3 resemble lens flare to me so I am in agreement with your photographer friend at this stage.
However looking at photo 4 (which is rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise), there is an odd diamond shaped light right on the edge of shot (above and to left of Moon in normal view) which does not appear in the other 3 pics and which I suspect IS lens flare from a bright light of some kind just on/outside the lower right side edge of that shot.
To test this theory I drew lines from frame corner to corner to find the center of image, then drew a straight line from the 'bright diamond' to where the estimated center of the bright light is and as you can see it passes through the center of frame, not only that but the length of the line from the center to the 'diamond' is the same as from the bright light source to the center. So this seems to show that the 'diamond' is lens flare from the bright light as this will appear on the opposite side of the frame and in the opposite half vertically being a 'mirror image' reflection inside the lens of the light causing it. I hope this makes sense so far? See image below:
Similarly, if we look at photo 1 and find it's centre by drawing lines from corner to corner, and draw a line from the bright street lamp to the 'blue tube' (or rectangular light), then we can again see that this line also passes approximately through the centre and is equidistant on both sides, indicating a mirrored lens flare connection again. See image below:
But how can a circular light leave a rectangular 'lens flare'? As I had never seen this before, I had a look on Google street view to see if that helped and the closest Google car location to where I think the photographs were taken from is shown below:
This view helped me ascertain that the bright light just out of shot and at roof level on pic 4 was probably the street lamp on the pole to the right.
And zooming in closer up on the wall mounted street lamp at the front of the building straight ahead looks like this below:
As you can see, the lamp has a rectangular shaped light aperture, possibly a high intensity LED lamp? but more importantly even though the light on the photographs appears circular to us the very brightest part, where the light is emitted from, is actually rectangular in shape and the camera lens has picked up on this and bounced it back as a small rectangular shaped light diametrically opposed to the bright light source.
Also the light on the left side of the same building also has a rectangular shaped lens, see image below:
Similarly if we apply the corner to corner lines to find the centre on the 3rd pic (751), and then draw straight lines from the two bright street lamps shown above through the centre for the same distance past the centre, we find that the end of the line is exactly where the two spurious bright rectangles appear in the sky on the photo. Not only that, but a line drawn from the 3rd bright street lamp visible on the left-hand side of the street, to the centre and then on for the same distance ends exactly on top of the 'green light'. See image below:
On the 2nd pic with the 'fog' (attached below) we also find that even though the 'odd rectangular lights/blue tube' and the 'green ball' seem to have shifted relative to the Moon, when we apply the corner lines and then project an equidistant line from the 3 bright lights through the centre, we once again find that the lines end at exactly at the spot where the spurious 'light/objects' are, thus again corroborating the thought that however unusual it may seem, the mystery lights are indeed caused by the bright lamps reflecting off the inside of the Apple iPhone camera lens.
I'm sorry this has taken a while to fathom out and explain, but I do I hope you can see the logic in what I'm saying? As we already know, taking a picture that has a very bright point source light is highly likely to cause lens flare but this case certainly did take a bit of 'getting your head around' as it is the first time I have encountered rectangular shaped lens flare, but then I guess there are many new things to encounter and we are learning all the time.
Mark Easen
Image Analyst
Investigations Coordinator
