An Odd Sky Observation

Happened to look up about 1 hour, 6 minutes after sunset and saw what appeared to be a beam of light shining up in the sky to the west.. But it looked truncated toward the horizon, so I looked at it again. The closest way to describe it is like an illuminated contrail moving east to maybe northeast. It had a shimmering effect, though, and I realized it was illuminated by the sun below the horizon. Sure enough, when it reached a certain elevation, it vanished. My estimate of the elevation turned out to be way off, as it yielded a figure above the atmosphere, which was impossible, given the apparent width and, well, it looked like something happening in the atmosphere.

Problem is, I don't know what that "something was." I've seen a fireball before, and once a meteor that didn't make a fireball leave a trail, but there was nothing bright at the head of the trail. Likewise, have seen a few launches, and with both you could see the glow of the engines. The way it shimmered made me think of something burning up in the earth's atmosphere, but there was no "shooting star" associated with it.

Really wish I could have gotten a better estimate of the elevation, to know how high it was. It might offer a clue to what I observed.

MMXX said:

Was it anything like this?

Click to expand...

No. It was clearly reflected sunlight, was moving away from the horizon, and looked for all the world like exhaust or the trail behind a meteor. Going over my calculations again. I'm so old, I'm likely not doing them correctly.

Sigh. No. I clearly didn't estimate the correct elevation where the trail winked out. If I had, I could have accurately calculated the height of the trail.