Object photographed near the Moon

Date and time of sighting: 1 April 2026 21:03:00

Sighting Location: From back garden, London, UK.

Number of objects seen: 2

Witness written account: My son and I where taking pictures of the moon on 01/04/2026 we noticed on two pictures out of many a black object going from left to right near the centre turning white on the edge on second pic. Also lower down onthe right side of moon there is a gas or something coming off the moon which is not seen on first picture. The first picture is at 2103 and second pic at 2119.

BUFORA Evaluation: Thank you for submitting your sighting report and 2 photographs of the Moon to us at BUFORA, and many thanks for your kind donation to our voluntary organisation.

I can see the 2 (or 3?) differences you point out between those two pictures, and am just wondering if there were any other pictures taken in between the two (first at 21:03, second at 21:19) that you sent in? (just so we can observe any potential 'intermedial progression/movement' of the objects?) but I'm guessing there was most likely no pics in between or you would have said?

Lets address the second observation first: "lower down on  the right side of moon there is a gas or something coming off the moon which is not seen on first picture". Yes I can see something there that looks as you describe. It does look to me as if it could be something 'coming off' the Moon - rather than being a smaller closer out-of-focus object such as an insect or bird, but even with the excellent Megapixel count (50?) on your Google Pixel Pro 10 phone camera and its 5x zoom it is not possible to see exactly what it is. According to Wikipedia 'outgassing' does occasionally occur on the Moon, or maybe you have captured an asteroid hitting the surface and what we can see is the dust/ejected material coming off?

The first object which you refer to as "a black object going from left to right near the centre turning white on the edge on second pic." I'm wondering if it is actually the same object in both pics or not? In the first photo I would describe the 'black object' near the center as a 'blotch' very similar to but darker than the several other 'blotches' that one can see in that picture. I don't know as I'm not an expert on 'the Moon' but I would guess those 'blotches' are less bright areas of lower altitude on the surface, and therefore they do not capture/reflect as much sunlight as the higher areas of the surface do? 

One can then see the same 'blotches' in the second photo (minus the darker 'blotch' in question) but as they are all less dark, this may simply be because the Sun/Moon orientation has rotated slightly and more light is now reaching/reflecting from the Moon. This would also be corroborated by the 'properties' tab showing the auto shutter speed in pic1 of 1/539th sec has increased to 1/555th sec in pic2 hence it's slightly brighter. Also as you say the darker 'object/blotch' was only noticed on the single (first of those 2) picture this makes it less likely to be an actual feature of the Moon's surface, and I would say it's more likely to be something passing by in front of and much closer to the camera such as a flying insect? And captured on that single pic only?

In the second photo I can indeed see the 'white object' you refer to at about 3 O'clock, apparently just off the edge off the Moon? We can zoom in to see it looks like a 'white jelly bean' (and not at all similar to the dark object in the first pic) but again even with the very good phone camera image we cannot really see sufficient surface detail or outline shape to enable a positive identification, and I'm just wondering if that too may be an object that is a lot closer to us such as an insect or possibly could it be a satellite/space debris? Such as reported in this story: https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/world-news/nasa-photographs-object-orbiting-the-moon-exquisite-timing/

So in summary: Whilst I feel that there is insufficient evidence available here for us to form a definitive identification, there may be various plausible explanations along the lines I have mentioned to account for the 2 or 3 anomalies appearing on your two photographs. 

In spite of those objects remaining 'unexplained', I do hope that this evaluation and my thoughts/observations have been of some help to you, and thanks again for contacting us.

Kind regards

Mark Easen

BUFORA Investigations.