In the early afternoon, I look up in the sky and see what I guess to be a helium balloon that some kid is now screaming about having lost.
It is, however, intriguing….so I grab my camera and head outside.
The object appeared, from my perspective, west of the moon and perhaps 1000 feet up.
I snapped a few shots and realized that was no kid’s helium balloon…it was a weather balloon! 
As it turns out, it’s not “just” a weather balloon 1000 feet up. In fact, it’s a high altitude research balloon at 115,776 Feet….that’s roughly 23 miles!
I can’t imagine the size of the balloon itself compared to a hot air balloon!
A little later I looked out and caught it with a contrail background. 1 second earlier and I’d have caught the jet with it!
Apparently it moves at approximately 6 feet per minute. That would explain why we could still see it when the sun went down! It was high enough that it was illuminated by the moon from the east and the sun to the west.
A friend called to ask if I could see the bright light in the sky and questioned the possibility of a UFO! She said a lot of folks were standing around staring at it trying to figure out if it was a UFO.
Of course, Luna, beauty that she is, was no less spectacular by day…
And by night! Yes, this was providing the glow on one side of the balloon!
Realizing the perspective of the balloon and the moon, one can grasp only a small portion of the immenseness of the universe.
Of course, the thing for each of us to grasp, is that each and every one of us plays a beautiful role in this enormous space in the time we are here!
