Anyone else viewing that star in the sky?

Im looking at the stellarium right now. Am I able to enter my location or anything like that? Im a bit confused

Just a "heads up:"
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4bce891d46ba.jpg[/atsimg]

Step outside as evening twilight fades, and from now through the middle of August you'll find three planets shining low in the west - one much brighter than the other two. All you'll need is a clear sky and an open westward view about an hour after sunset.
"Venus will leap out at you," says Alan MacRobert, a senior editor of Sky and Telescope magazine. "Saturn and Mars are fainter, so you may need to wait for the sky to darken a bit more before they glimmer into view."

www.skynightly.com...

reply to post by DJW001


Yep, seen it about 2 days ago. Venus was really bright. I was able to see it early too, so it was pretty low to the horizon.

Originally posted by Oozii
Im looking at the stellarium right now. Am I able to enter my location or anything like that? Im a bit confused

Hit the wrench icon on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen (or you can just hit "1" on your keyboard). This will open the configuration window. From there click on the location tab and a map will appear where you can choose your location from.

I've seen this 'star' you are talking about over the past year or so, it flashes red, green, and white. But sometimes it would not be there It appeared to morph shapes as well, but I thought it was my eyes playing tricks.

Speaking of weird sky stuff, my friend and I were riding in a car through my neighborhood and the sky flashed neon greenish-blue. The sky was clear and there was no lightning before or after this, nor did I see a lightning bolt or meteor trail.

reply to post by Centurionx


This is definitely a good year for stargazing, especially for those with telescopes with several of the major planets making close approaches to us.

That flash in the sky you spoke of - well I've seen exactly the same thing on several occasions and what it was is a fault on a HV overhead feeder. Those flashes are amazingly bright when you have a dark sky and it seems to light up that sky from horizon to horizon even when the fault flash is miles away. The faults can have variety of causes like wind, trees, birds, animals like possums, car hitting a pole, failed insulator etc etc and feeder faults are quite common events on distribution networks.

reply to post by Pilgrum


Oh man thx for clearing that up, I had no idea what to make of it. Back to this star, when I saw it was usually in the west, not far from Venus. However, it was sometimes in the SW or in the south too. It did not appear to follow a fixed pattern in the sky, the only thing that makes sense is maybe satellites.
Which was mentioned by another member. But I don't remember satellites being so big and bright, let alone morphing shapes lol.

reply to post by Centurionx


The ISS is, at peak brightness, brighter than Jupiter but not quite as bright as Venus. There are a lot of factors involved in how bright it appears at any location on any given pass and you need to know where & when to be looking for it because the event only lasts for a few minutes with it orbiting the earth every 90 minutes or so in its low altitude orbit.

Here is a site predicting visible passes for any given location for the next 10 days.

'Iridium flares' are another source of unexpected sightings and these are bright enough to be visible in daylight. A quick net search will locate sites which predict these for given locations as well.

I recommend buying a star chart,
get out in the garden with it under a red light,
lots of fun and you will soon know the names of most of the first magnitude stars,

PEACE,
RK

reply to post by Pilgrum


Aye, I'm fairly confident I am not looking at a spaceship or a 10th planet hehe. Thanks for your input on this, especially with the neon lights we saw the other evening.

Originally posted by Rigel Kent
I recommend buying a star chart,
get out in the garden with it under a red light,
lots of fun and you will soon know the names of most of the first magnitude stars,

PEACE,
RK

I'll have to see where I can purchase one, sounds cool.


Also, I used the Stellarium, and picked my location, I checked where Venus was that night, and then went from there, but the star I was viewing wasn't listed or anything.

I will double check again, because I know I seen the star last night, but not as bright, so to make sure tonight I will use it again.

and I still dont have a camera....

Hi,
We live right on the coast near Hythe, South East UK.
I first noticed it 3 or 4 weeks ago, when it was beath the moon. Then, whilst walking the dog last Friday night 13.8.2010, I saw it again, but in the back garden instead of from the front. So I said to my wife, that coloured flashing star is out the back this time, she said no, it's out the front. So we went up to the roof window to settle the argument, only to find there are now two of them.

Any ideas anybody?
Cheers

Originally posted by kokopelliuk
Hi,
We live right on the coast near Hythe, South East UK.
I first noticed it 3 or 4 weeks ago, when it was beath the moon. Then, whilst walking the dog last Friday night 13.8.2010, I saw it again, but in the back garden instead of from the front. So I said to my wife, that coloured flashing star is out the back this time, she said no, it's out the front. So we went up to the roof window to settle the argument, only to find there are now two of them.

Any ideas anybody?
Cheers

First off, you are writing here since you are amazed that you have TWO twinkling stars in the sky? That sounds like something for the X-files, don't it?

-Mulder! Mulder! Look at that totally empty canvas up there.
-There seem to be some objects up there.
-What could it be?
- I don't know Scully, we might be witnessing the first sky-born objects of mankind=)

Sorry, just joking.

But honestly, without location it's really hard to know what you are looking at. My best tip would be to download Stellarium and put in your location there. I promisse you that it's really easy. There are quite a few stars up there that are really bright=)

reply to post by Oozii


Try a traditional Ship Chandlers,
they should be able to supply you with an A1 size marine star chart

PEACE,
RK

reply to post by Zeta Reticulan
hey, i seen it ,i have been taking pictures of it and zooming in on the photo's myself.and ..well too me the photos looks to me like a strip of light on top of something way larger than the light it's self .cant describe but i have seen it .im a new member ,but as soon as i can figur out .if i can post some pics on here for all to see and the things i have seen m,to see what else anyone can .tell me about ........

reply to post by Zeta Reticulan
ahh i have seen what you are talking about in the south sky ,i live in san jose,ca.and have taken pics of the (what ever it is ) its not jupiter ,mars ,but will try and post .im a new memeber and lets see what happens next .

My godfather filmed this a few days ago, are we talking about the same thing? He can't say for sure but he thinks that it was moving and in appeared and disappeared.

But honestly, without location it's really hard to know what you are looking at. My best tip would be to download Stellarium and put in your location there. I promisse you that it's really easy. There are quite a few stars up there that are really bright=)

I downloaded Stellarium, and called my internet satellite company to get my exact GPS location. It is hard to know what you're looking at. I've been seeing a HUGE bright yellow star, just before sunrise in the morning to the east, slightly south, from about the center of Canada. All this time I thought it was Jupiter, because of the size and color. I've never noticed Venus in the morning before. When the sun is rising behind it, it's yellow. In a really dark sky, it's always looked blue.

It's 7:45 AM right now, and I can still see it. Getting smaller as it goes up in the sky, it'll soon be too bright outside.
The other large stars/planets visible to me before sunrise are Arcturus (sp?), and Saturn.