As seen from that location at 07:00 UTC on October 24, the Sun would have been about 1 degree above the horizon in the ESE (azimuth 106 degrees). If I was asked to guess, I'd say that the photo was taken looking E to SE under bright twilight conditions a few minutes before 07:00. The circumstances (Sun just below the horizon in the general direction of the observation) would have been ideal for the observation of a sunlit aircraft condensation trail as it shone brightly by forward scattering against a sky that is slightly darker than full daylight. I have seen several images showing such contrails that look very similar to this one. Some of these were reported as possible meteoric fireballs or satellite reentries, but the duration of visibility (sometimes minutes) was inconsistent with the likely duration of such phenomena. A meteoric fireball is unlikely to last for more than 5-10 seconds, while a reentry could take a minute or two to cross the entire sky, but would take only seconds to cover the apparent arc shown on the photograph. Incidentally, Soyuz TMA-12 landed at 03:37 UTC on October 24, so could not have been the cause. SpaceTrack reports no other satellite decays on that day. If this were a Taurid fireball (which I doubt) then the apparent downwards direction of motion in the E to SE would be consistent with the position (low in the W) of the two radiants of the Taurids complex. Alan -- Alan Pickup / Edinburgh / Scotland / COSPAR 2707: 55.8968N 3.1989W +208m (WGS84 datum) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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