What in the world?

[M83]

I was doing some lunar observation just now, with the skies still lit when I saw what I thoguht to be a bright "Star" about 15 degrees NNE from the moon. When I aimed my telescope at it, I was shocked to find a completely spherical object which had a pearl like hue to it. It just sat there floating around in different directions, while staying in my field of view. If anyone is reading this now, see if you can also catch a glimpse of it. I guess this is a weather balloon, but would it be that bright in the sky? This is as bright as Polaris on a dark night. I also figured weather balloons would have some sort of instrumentation hanging from it.

[M83]

Ok well it was gone after I went back outside from posting this. It basically looked like a big bubble floating around against a dark background. It also had refections in it, but I havent the faintest clue of what it could be reflecting.

*edit* Ok after a little bit of googling I think I figured out that it was just a simple little weather balloon. Still interesting though, I had no idea they were that bright!

This is similiar to how the one I saw looked.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/images/balloon...n3.jpg#contents (http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/images/balloon3.jpg#contents)

[aeolus]

Would have been neat if you saw it burst. Cool anyhow. What time were you looking at it (how long after/before sunset/sunrise?)

[M83]

It was about 10 minutes before sunset.

[piersdad]

My grand daughter saw something like that one day and it turned out that it was a balloon with some one shining a powerfull light on it.
how ever there are a lot of things people see in the sky that have no real explanation ball lightening is one but in still air and no thunder storm etc??

like microbes in a muddy puddle we see but dont comprehend.

The cost of co relalating all the observations with first hand interviews all over the world would be 'astronomical' and if a web site was set up just to collect these observations it would be innundated by cranks.
--The first hand personal interview would be the only way of sorting the good from the bad.

---I personally saw a light in the night sky way back in 1947 at the time of the roswell thing and I think even now it was some sort of natural occurence, but what?.
-A personal interview would be able to sort out the exact conditions at the time eg was there a pop star show with lazer lights going on at the time or was there any wind or did the object go into a cloud and many many more questions that could only be answered if the interviewer was actually there not asking blind
questions from a web site etc.

--So dont be deterred from reporting these things as one day the answers may present them selves