A Striped Purple-Red Sky Orb

Photo date: May 9, 2016. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below shows a striped purple-red orb above some buildings in New York City.

Below is a closeup of the strange orb (I used the IrfanView "Auto-adjust colors" menu option on the closeup).

 This is the 13th time I have photographed a striped orb floating in the air, as shown here (the link shows several other striped sky orbs). 

There was no rain, fog, mist or precipitation on this night. The air quality listed on airnow.gov was "good."

Note how in the top photo we see lots of orbs, but  none of them in front of the buildings. That's a strong indication we are not seeing any particles near the camera, which would be evenly scattered around the photo area.  See here for 31 similar photos, many of which show lots of orbs in the sky, but no orbs in front of buildings at the bottom of the photos.