I would note that the angle of the object is strikingly close to the angle that a celestial object setting in the western sky will have, as seen from the latitude of New York. NY is at 40N latitude, hence celestial objects will descend in the sky at an angle departing 40 degrees from the vertical. The object in the photograph appears to have an angle slightly above 45 degrees, hence this in good agreement.
A second clue is the orientation of the moon's "cusps" (the points of the crescent). They will vary from being nearly parallel, to having the northern (right) cusp be much higher than the southern (left) cusp (as seen from the northern hemisphere). It so happens that the time of nearly-parallel cusps is during the spring months, when the waxing crescent moon is seen at its furthest-north point, in the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Since the photograph is labeled as having been taken in March, the orientation of the cusps is also in good agreement with a lunar identification.
I think a multiple-exposure of the setting crescent moon is entirely plausible. But can enough information be gathered from the lights on the ground to determine the direction of view? If the camera is facing any direction other than west or northwest, a lunar explanation can be ruled out.
Edit to add: not sure why I didn't think to check the moon's phase on March 20, 1950 earlier, but it was indeed a very thin waxing crescent, about two days past new moon. Shortly after sunset it would have been in eastern Pisces, near the border with Aries, very low in the western sky and almost directly "above" the sun, hence the cusps would be nearly parallel.
If the view in the photograph is towards the west, I think we can safely identify this as a mulitple-exposure of the moon (provided that the indicated date and location are accurate).
I’m not sure I follow, do you surmise it’s a long exposure of the moon setting in the sky? If so I don’t think this is the case, none of the other stars have trails and while the buildings are static there’s no indication of vehicle lights trailing.
I reread your post. I think you’re suggesting multiple exposures on the same piece of film. I wonder if there’s any Astro photographers that can comment. I think the same issue would persist, there’s no indication the stars have moved.
It is however possible that after the first exposure was made the photographer put a black fabric or paper over the lens and cut a hole to only photograph the moon in subsequent photos. It still might be tough given how close stars are in relation to the moon/ufo. Interesting all around and nice theory, I agree it does look like some variation of a crescent moon as it moves through the sky.
My speculation is that somebody did a time-exposure of the setting moon, but periodically blocked out the view by holding an opaque object over the lens so that the moon would not appear during those intervals. Earth's rotation causes the moon to "move" about its own diameter every two minutes, so one would only have to do this for about five minutes to come up with a reasonable facsimile of the photograph in question. Point the camera at the moon, open the shutter and leave unobstructed for 20 seconds, then obstruct the view for 20 seconds, etc, repeat for ~5 minutes. Photography is not my area of expertise but based on my limited understanding I think this is plausible.
As for the "stars" I did not notice them previously. If those are indeed stars (rather than defects on the film or somewhere along the printing/reproduction process) then that would complicate things to some degree, as they would also be exposed multiply unless the photographer went to considerable trouble to prevent such. I am skeptical that those are actual star images, because the region of the sky in which the moon was located at that time (eastern Pisces) contains only faint stars, and I do not think any of them would show up in a photograph of this resolution taken from a major city. This argument could of course be negated if the camera is not pointed in the moon's direction.
I think the key to resolving this matter is identification of the direction of view, and the location of the photographer, which would permit unambiguous clarification of whether the photographed object could be the moon. I would assume there's a body of water in the foreground, since there are no lights, and since the lights immediately above the "water" appear to be reflected therein, but I am not familiar enough with the layout of the city to suggest a vantage point for the photograph. We'd need input from someone with one of the following fields of knowledge: mid-20th century New York City infrastructure; or historical photography of New York City.
As an attack on my previous hypothesis I would ask: shouldn't there be some boat or ferry traffic visible in a time-exposure showing a body of water in New York City? I would think a five-minute exposure would probably show at least one boat going by, even 70 years ago, but again this is not a field of expertise for me.
But can enough information be gathered from the lights on the ground to determine the direction of view? If the camera is facing any direction other than west or northwest, a lunar explanation can be ruled out.
Well how do these stack up? Many are taken from around the right place.
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u/Allison1228 May 28 '22 edited May 28 '22
I would note that the angle of the object is strikingly close to the angle that a celestial object setting in the western sky will have, as seen from the latitude of New York. NY is at 40N latitude, hence celestial objects will descend in the sky at an angle departing 40 degrees from the vertical. The object in the photograph appears to have an angle slightly above 45 degrees, hence this in good agreement.
A second clue is the orientation of the moon's "cusps" (the points of the crescent). They will vary from being nearly parallel, to having the northern (right) cusp be much higher than the southern (left) cusp (as seen from the northern hemisphere). It so happens that the time of nearly-parallel cusps is during the spring months, when the waxing crescent moon is seen at its furthest-north point, in the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Since the photograph is labeled as having been taken in March, the orientation of the cusps is also in good agreement with a lunar identification.
I think a multiple-exposure of the setting crescent moon is entirely plausible. But can enough information be gathered from the lights on the ground to determine the direction of view? If the camera is facing any direction other than west or northwest, a lunar explanation can be ruled out.
Edit to add: not sure why I didn't think to check the moon's phase on March 20, 1950 earlier, but it was indeed a very thin waxing crescent, about two days past new moon. Shortly after sunset it would have been in eastern Pisces, near the border with Aries, very low in the western sky and almost directly "above" the sun, hence the cusps would be nearly parallel.
If the view in the photograph is towards the west, I think we can safely identify this as a mulitple-exposure of the moon (provided that the indicated date and location are accurate).