Quick! All Georgia Members, Look Up! What is That Bright Star?

reply to post by Loken68

That's nuts Loken! It took a 45 degree turn? I know that there is still a meteor shower going on, but they wouldn't turn like that would they?

This is a current view to the East as it is from Tarpon Springs, FL in Stellarium. Which one do you think it is space cadet?

Scroll the image to the right...



[edit on 5/8/2010 by UberL33t]

reply to post by UberL33t


I believe it is definately Vega! Thanks for that picture. I am in the city so I cannot put together all the stars I see in these graphics, I can only see a few of them, but I still think Vega is what I am looking at. It is a brilliant sight! I love SPACE

If the object is to the west then it is most likely venus, it is the brightest thing in the sky for the next few weeks/months also a couple times the next couple months you can see the space station going across the sky... usually only visible for 1-4 minutes depending where you/it are at. If you never have seen the station fly over btw... look it up on the nasa site and see when the next flyover for your location is, it looks as bright as the "venus" your viewing right now and it moves stedily across the sky.

reply to post by Xagathorn


I try to never miss the station flyovers, I have seen it, it is very bright as it comes over and appears not to be moving at first, then it seems like it is moving side to side or very wobbly as it goes over, very cool to see.

Well if it is not Venus, then it has to be the space station because this thing moves.
It does not stay very long in one place.
It could also be the military shuttle on its top-secret mission.

reply to post by space cadet




That's the fourth sighting I've had in two weeks. I thought it was a meteor, maybe not. There has been alot of activity recently. Just for the record I checked a Satellite tracking website I use. It wasn't ISS you saw.

Here's another shot in Stellarium...you mentioned it was low to the horizon. I highlighted another alternative.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c279077c856f.jpg[/atsimg]

i have been seeing this for about 2 weeks now. I think its the ISS because it moves through the sky pretty fast. On my street i have a row of 2 story townhomes and the bright object hangs out above those until about 9:30 pm central time and it moves outta my sight. None of the others stars move outta my sight like that. Some input from the Gulf Coast FL.

Thank you all for your reponses, I do appreciate them. It is time for Betty White's appearance on SNL now, I will be back after that!

And maybe its just me but it appears to waver left to right a little from time to time.

I live just east of atlanta abd noticed that bright star about 9:30 and just went out to check it again and it is gone. It is not the iss as it is not schedualed to fly over tonight. I will say it was definately bright and interesting. It looked like it was a plane coming in to land, but it stayed in one spot.

Oh my god I didn't even stop to read the replies. I'm gonna go back and read them, yes! yes, I saw that thing , it was amazing! I thought of ATS and then I told myself it just looks different because I recently moved out of Atlanta and I can see the stars more clearly. I've never seen anything like it, I can't believe this thread

What a cool thread:

Vega is too high in the sky

I am gonna go with it being the ISS. I saw it around 9:00 or 9:30 EST. I went out to check it again about 11:30, thinking it would be some place close by, but it was gone. I found this thread around midnight. It was the ISS or the shuttle craft on it's secret mission that someone above mentioned.

Well it moved too far to see anymore, I am a little put off now thinking it is for sure Vega, as it went further away I noticed that there were no other stars around it, now while it was right overhead I attributed that to the lights around this building, but there are not any city lights as you continue east, that is going out of town. It was still extremely bright and twinkling the last I saw of it. Can't wait to see again tomorrow!

Hey all I been coming here for about a year now always looking and reading and I have to say I've been seeing this star in the sky every night [when it's not raining] for about 3 weeks . Its in the western sky and you can see it before the sun even set's. If you look to the sunset its about 45 degrees straight up from the sun. It's been by far the brightest star I've ever seen. I've been trying to get some info on it and can't seem to find any.I've also been wanting to point it out on ATS and this post made me sign up . Thought I was the only one to notice this. I've been looking to the night sky most of my life always looking up at night. I'm not thinking it's Venus I see it in the same spot every night as the sun sets and it does twinkle like crazy. Well guess that all I got about this . But now I'm a member and you haven't heard the last of me ..... Peace out all

Well it is not the iss because it is not schedualed for a flyby until next week.This comes from spaceweather.com. I do not know but does a star only stay in the sky for just a couple of hours then leave. I do not know what it was,but it was definately bright and interesting.This thing was fairly large from what i saw.

At this moment I feel as blonde as I can possibly feel. I was saying it was in the eastern sky. I am so sorry. I live on the east side of town, and work in the central part of town facing west. So it was actually in the western sky not the eastern sky. Sorry guys. Now I really don't know what it could be?

reply to post by tsurfer2000h


I have to agree, I am always looking up, but I have never notices this star before. I notice three days ago and it only hangs around for an hour on the east cost and disappears. This does not make since, because stars just do not disappear.

I really wonder if this is the military shuttle and I am wonder what they are up to

Originally posted by lencando
Hey all I been coming here for about a year now always looking and reading and I have to say I've been seeing this star in the sky every night [when it's not raining] for about 3 weeks . Its in the western sky and you can see it before the sun even set's. If you look to the sunset its about 45 degrees straight up from the sun. It's been by far the brightest star I've ever seen. I've been trying to get some info on it and can't seem to find any.I've also been wanting to point it out on ATS and this post made me sign up . Thought I was the only one to notice this. I've been looking to the night sky most of my life always looking up at night. I'm not thinking it's Venus I see it in the same spot every night as the sun sets and it does twinkle like crazy. Well guess that all I got about this . But now I'm a member and you haven't heard the last of me ..... Peace out all

If you are looking westerly, I think you are seeing Venus–it moved into the evening sky in March. It will disappear from view in October as it passes between Earth and the Sun. It will return to view as a “morning star” by early November, and remain there for the rest of the year.

www.jb.man.ac.uk...

Venus is now prominent in the evening sky after sunset in the west north-west. At magnitude -3.9, it will be easily spotted - the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. With an angular size of 11.4 arc seconds as May begins and increasing to nearly 13 arc seconds by month's end, it will appear in a telescope as a well illuminated disc like that in the accompanying image. It was this observation by Galileo that showed that Venus must orbit the Sun - should it, as in the Ptolomaic system, be moving in an epicycle between the Sun and the Earth, it could never show a fully illuminated disk! It is an interesting fact that Venus's brightness remains pretty constant at ~ -3.8 to -4 all the time that it is visible. As it nears the Earth, it become a thin crescent, but the fact that it is then much nearer to us means that the effective reflecting area remains virtually constant in apparent size.