star,planet, or something else?

i recently drove cross-country(almost) from cali to illinois. while driving through the middle of nevada at about 3-4 a.m i saw a planet in the eastern sky. i realize their was virtually no light pollution, so i put that into account. but this thing was huge maybe 1/5 or 1/4 the size of the moon, and beautiful. just curious if anyone knows what it might have been. it was a little startling because ive never seen anything remotely this size or so damn bright, u really could see its shape as opposed to just seeing the light of a typical star, if that makes sense. anyway just curious if anyone could help me with an answer. is this typical occurence when in the desert? thanks

You either saw venus or that meteor/comet that was in another thread on ATS somewhere.

Was it stationary or did it move?

reply to post by manifestdest


If it was not a banking aircraft, and moved slowly with the Earth's rotation it would most likely have been Venus. Venus is at Greatest Western elongation on October 28th, and so rises in the early hours of the morning. It is about 50% illuminated so through a telescope it looks like a featurless white half moon.