Orange Sky Orb Ascends Mysteriously

Photo date: March 31, 2016. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below shows an orange-colored orb that seems to be ascending upward in the sky, above a building in New York City. It wasn't the moon, which was only a half-moon on this night.

The photo was reduced in width but not in height, meaning the orb was 9 percent of the original photo height.  There was no fog, mist, rain or precipitation on this night.

The diagram below may help to illustrate how absurd it is to try to explain photos like these as photos of dust.  The diagram shows one tenth of the area right in front of a point-and-click camera lens with a size of about 15 millimeters (15,000 microns).  The arrow points to a tiny particle that is the size of the largest dust particles floating about in ordinary indoor air (which are only about 10 microns).  The particle is so small you won't be able to see it clearly unless you bring up the image in an editor and zoom in.  Could a particle this size cause an orb as big as the one shown above? No, it's many times too small.  For me to have got a picture like the one above from a floating dust particle would have required a dust particle of about 1400 microns. Dust particles in ordinary outdoor air are only about 1 micron, and if they are ever bigger than 50 microns visibility is sharply reduced. See here for more about this topic.