An authentic photo surfaced Friday afternoon capturing the bright light seen by dozens of Southern California sky watchers.

About 50 people contacted the American Meteor Society on Thursday with reports of a "green fireball" lighting up the sky. Sightings were reported in Ventura, Anaheim, Van Nuys, Los Angeles, Paso Robles, San Francisco and Santa Barbara, according to the group's website.

Photographer Susan Lary of the Southern California Weather Authority captured the so-called fireball and provided the image to NBC News.

Lary's photograph was taken with a 1-minute exposure in Lancaster, Calif., facing southwest.

"I saw a light and looked directly at the meteor as it came down in the ocean off Corona Del Mar. Bits came off, and it was bright white," Laguna Hills resident Patric Barry wrote in an email to NBC4.

Barry spotted the object out of his living room window about 10:35 p.m.

Read more from NBCLosAngeles.com

The sightings come days after Bay Area residents were treated to a light show of their own when a fireball was seen streaking across the sky.

Another fireball sighting was reported this month in Florida, but the most spectacular celestial event occurred when a meteor soared over Russia before the rock slammed into Earth's surface, sending shockwaves across a widespread area.

The sightings were reported as a 50-foot asteroid estimated to weigh 143,000 tons -- dubbed 2012 DA14 -- made an historic fly-by.

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.

The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque.

People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.

A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said.

"This is a lot of reports to come in quickly," Hankey said. 

Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean.

"These fireballs are common," Hankey said. "It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime. But on any given night, it might happen somewhere in the globe a few times in a day."

Hankey added: "People should not be scared of the sky falling or anything at all."

Amanda Mayer, of West Palm Beach, said she saw something in the sky and said she thought it was somebody flashing a light. She said she hit record on her camera.

"I was like, 'Wow! That's weird," Mayer said. "I just started videotaping, and that's when it happened."

More news from NBCMiami.com

It turned out to be good timing: The ball of light appeared as she recorded, she said.

"I was pretty sure it was a meteor because of everything else that's been happening," Mayer said.

The Coast Guard said it had suspected Sunday's sighting was a meteor shower, but Hankey disagreed. "Meteor showers usually are much dimmer and faster moving," Hankey said. 

After a meteor exploded overhead near Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Friday, reportedly injuring more than 1,000 people, many people elsewhere in the world have wrongly thought that streaks they've seen in the sky, including planes, are meteors, Hankey said.

"We’re getting a lot more false reports," Hankey said.

But with false reports, the group tends to receive only one report describing an incident, Hankey said. If the same event is reported over and over in five or 10 minutes, then that’s more likely to be "a legitimate event,” or sporadic meteor, Hankey said. 

In South Florida Sunday night, the Coast Guard found that the light streak vanished in an instant. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check out a report of a flare near the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, but found nothing there, Laberdesque said.

Related:

Fireball over N. California causes stir