This blazing image of a bright orange trail was captured in the skies above Liverpool by an ECHO reader.
Image
© Val Lovatt
Val Lovatt took the photos of the stunning sight over Newsham Park last Friday evening at about 6.30pm. She has now sent the images to the ECHO, thinking it might be a meteor. Others also spoke on social media about seeing a "meteor" in the evening sky.

The 57-year-old betting shop worker said: "I was made up with the pictures, it was just a case of being in the right place at the right time. "I was taking pictures on my camera in the park and had just been down to the lake taking photos." The ECHO asked Ken Clark, from the Liverpool Astronomical Society, to study the photographs in a bid to identify the glowing orange streak in the sky.

Val Lovatt took the photos of the stunning sight over Newsham Park last Friday evening at about 6.30pm. He concluded the fireball-like streak was in fact a trail left by an aeroplane which appears orange because of the sunset. Mr Clark said: "I've studied the images carefully and I'm afraid it's not a meteor but something commonly mistaken for one - a jet aircraft.

"The sun has set but the plane is still catching sunlight, hence the redness of the image, at such high altitude and the 'tail' is the exhaust vapour trail of the engines which are clearly in two lanes corresponding to the engine's positions on the aircraft.
Image

"Often people mistake such a sight as a comet too."