Puzzling Orange Orb Livens Up a Quiet Street

Photo date: August 23, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Despite New York City's reputation as "the city that never sleeps," on this night Madison Avenue was quite quiet around 10:00 PM. There weren't even many pedestrians. But things were livened up a bit by the appearance of this vivid orange orb in the sky.  It wasn't the moon, which was only a half moon on this night.

There was no fog, mist, rain, or precipitation on this night. The air quality listed on airnow.gov was "good," with a rating of 24 (anything below 50 is considered good).