Contrails

As I turned east today on my late-night walk, I saw three long contrails painted across the sky. All three of them were brighter than any I'd seen at night before. But the weird thing was their angle - they were spread high and far apart in the north and converged near the horizon at their southern end. I couldn't see where exactly because of the houses.

I walked, then ran, through dark residential blocks, searching for a good vantage point to see where they intersected. I was kind of curious why three planes would fly that way. Soon I came to a spot where I could almost see their meeting place, through a gap between two houses. There was a bright glow seeping out from behind the left house, apparently from right where the contrails joined. It was the moon.

I ran back home to grab my camera, then headed out again. This time I went farther south and east, to where the ground starts sloping downhill, so I could get a clearer view. There it was! The moon, and two of the contrails. The topmost, most-angled one had faded by now, and the other two were a lot fainter (and shorter) as well - ah well. I quickly turned on my camera - argh, the battery's almost gone! I quickly snapped two pictures, then looked around for something rest the camera on for steadiness. There wasn't anything tall enough.

I ran down the hill a block and found a great spot, but again without any kind of steadying capabilities available. I took two more pictures, but they weren't as good. As I was was doing this, standing in the middle of the street, a man in a suit emerged from the shadows, walking along the sidewalk.

"Taking pictures of the moon?"

"Yeah... and the contrails."

"I saw them. Nice night."

It was. It was actually kind of awe-inspiring. I just wish I had a decent picture of it. But maybe you can imagine what it looked like.