whats this? any ideas

[Scott]

a few weeks ago, i was playing with the new camera (gave up due to weather and moon) i captured this image. only looked at them tonight and noticed this weird mark. any ideas what it is? i'm thinking it's something in the camera rather than in the sky. it only happened on the one frame outof 6-8 frames

Scott

Edit: forgot to post image

[jgs001]

That looks like lens flare to me, caused by the position of the moon (?) in the image. Basically, the really bright light source in shot, causes internal reflections, and this is what you're seeing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_flare

[Capricorn]

It does look like a reflection within the camera.

The tail bit is pointing at the bright object (Moon ?) so would seem to be related to that. also the faint head looks as if it is the same but much dimmer, both appear as if two circles/spheres overlaid a little.

[Scott]

thanks John, that makes sense

Scott

[VigdisVZ]

Lens flare.

I get those smudgy ones too when doing the moon on full aperture. Try alternating aperture/exposure time to see if you canget a different result. Smaller apertures and the flare will take on different forms and look more like concentrated. Can be very beatiful to take longer exposure shots on the smallest aperture, you get very beautiful (imo) star spikes.

[jgs001]

Oh, if you have a UV filter on the lens, remove it... the lens will produce the flaring without them, and with them, it's even worse.

[sologuitarist61]

Yes definitely flare