Anyone else see the phenomena below around 1835Z, Monday morning 18 Nov Zulu Time. Our position was around Lake Eyre, 27S 136E heading 110 at FL370. It was about 45 mins before sunrise. Both pilots noticed a strange small bright circle of light about 1 finger width diameter at full arms length. Its location was near the constellation Centaurus, not far from the two pointers Alpha and Beta Centauri, ie around the Southern Cross. It appeared to have a bright centre like a star and a spiral structure, similar to the first image below. Over the next 20 mins the phenomena expanded to about 3 finger widths and slowly dissipated until there was nothing visible, as per the second image. There was no cloud in that area, the phenomena was at extreme altitude and there was no relative motion between the image and the stars in the area.
My guess is that it was Noctilucent cloud (which is cloud formed at extreme altitude by water vapour) and was formed by a meteor. As the other pilot said, it was like a star had gone supernova !
Any ideas ?
Image 1
Image 2
