Once Again, a Giant Purple Orb

Photo date: July 2, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Last night again I photographed what I have repeatedly photographed before: a giant purple orb appearing in my photos. Below are some photos that are all the full original photos, without any cropping or color adjustments.

At 9:21 I took this photo showing a big purple orb and another much smaller orb.

Below is another photo taken also taken at 9:21 PM.

Below is another photo also taken at 9:21 PM. This was pointing in the opposite direction. There were no bright lights nearby, nothing that could be causing lens flare.

 Next I took the photo below, pointed at the ground, to test whether I was seeing something caused by a camera defect. But the orb did not appear. It was still 9:21 PM.

Next I took the photo below (still at 9:21 PM), which showed the purple orb again, along with several other orbs at the top.

At 9:22 PM I took the photo below, which shows the orb blocked by a concrete wall that was about a meter from me. This shows the orb could not possibly have been caused by dust near the camera. Dust particles in front of the camera never appear as orbs larger than 10 percent of the photo height, but this orb I was photographing was more than 50% of the photo height.  There was also a yellow orb in the sky.

Another photo at 9:22 showed the orb again.

At 9:22 I tried a "cardboard test" to see whether the orb would appear in front of a piece of cardboard photographed at arm's length. It did not. (The orange thing to the left was a little piece of shipping tape sticking out of the cardboard.)

There were no further appearances of this giant purple orb in any of more than 40 photos I took this night,  including several additional photos that I later took at this same spot.

Given the very dark location, there is no way to explain these photos as lens flare. Given the huge size of the orb (and its appearance behind an obstruction a meter from the camera), there is no way to explain it as being caused by dust or pollen. 

There was no fog, mist, rain, or precipitation on this night.  The air quality was listed as "good" on airnow.gov, with a rating of 46. The pollen count was listed as low to medium on pollen.com, with a level of 4.7.

See my posts labeled "giant purple air orb" for descriptions (with photos) of several nights on which I had an experience like this night.