Planet?

Well, as the title says.

Is this a planet? I'm not a astrologist or anything, but I'd take a rough guess it is.

I'm not sure with what the visual speed of objects in the sky is via earth eyeballs to sky, but the following will give you an idea of what I'm asking.

The object in this photo I initially sited at 3:50AM

found here; (Original photo, resized, I have the original versions if needed. Take note, this photo is zoomed in which can be seen later on.)

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And this one, taken at 4:00AM.



It moved roughly 1/5th of my hands length from the base of my hand to the base of the mountain within 10 minutes, from my perspective at the same location, photos taken from the same spot.

It's obviously moving in the earths rotation, earth spins to the right, so stars etc come from the east to he west.

Yeah, basically it is located in the relative east of my location. Anddddddd that's about it.

Planet?

At 3:50 [my time], Mars and Venus both would have been fairly low to the horizon to the East. Not knowing where you are or your time zone makes that difficult to guess. Based on the color and location of your second photo, I'd have to guess that you were looking at Venus. If you go to www.heaven-above.com, create a free account, and look under the Astronomy section, click on the "Whole Sky Chart". You can then set the date and time to see what skies were or will be like in your area.

Cheers, and happy seeing

I'm no expert on such matters, but I'd guess that what you saw was a satellite.

reply to post by LiquidLight


That was my thought at first as well, until I noticed that the OP had the object in view for at least 10 minutes. We watched the ISS go almost directly overhead last night. Beautiful and bright (-2.5) even in light of the full moon.

I'm on the west coast in the US.

I saw this same object one time before, on the eastern horizon around ~6 AM, but daylight had already broke and it was still clearly visible. Very interesting.


I can't say what planet it is, but I do know that is as bright or brighter than Venus, and a few months back Venus was usually already set on the west coast around 1AM.


Interesting! Love space =D

Its a planet, maybe Jupiter because of the hour. Venus rise 2h later, with Mars.

To catch your eye attention it must be a planet and you have time to shot some photos.
Satellites passing by its only a mere seconds of brightness.

Yes space can be a passion, a fun way to start is to try to recognize the constellations in the night sky.
But the best part is when the sky is so good and very dark you can see the center of our galaxy, its breath taking.
Imagine you small you are compare with what you seeing in front of you.

Mars is red but that didn't look like Mars.
The first photo look too elongated to be a planet.

A UFO in hover can look like a star.
Also hard to see with the naked eye in the daytime.
But you might catch UFOs with a camera in the daytime.
Once they catch on you are taking photos they will move on
to an new area to hover on station all day.

Wilhelm Reich of Orgone fame had hovering craft for such
a long period he began to feel the effects.

One youtuber has been in a UFO hot spot for quite awhile.

I doubt the a UFO would drift to mimic a star but its possible.

Whatever planet this was, it had to be fairly close to earth because as I pointed it out, it moved very quickly, as quick as the moon if not quicker.

=\


I don't know, but I'm 90% positive that wasn't Venus,.

I saw something similar to that a few weeks ago. It was roughly SE and around 5:15 AM EST. I took pics but they're on a cell phone cam and not very clear. For the sake of comparison, though, I will upload them when I get home.

I am pretty sure it's a satellite I saw though.

Ok, it's what I would assume is a planet, what one I am not sure.

Also, do satellites travel against the earths orbit? =|

I saw a satellite spinning against the orbit, as in the sun rises from the east and sets on the west because we spin to the east, it came from the west and set on the east.

It looked a slight brighter than a satellite, but it was travelling quite fast. Just saw it a few minutes ago.

I love the night sky! XD

Most likely you saw Venus or Jupiter. Venus is extraordinarily bright right now, because it's about halfway between us and the sun (.51 AUs). Jupiter is also fairly bright; brighter than most stars around it anyway. This time of year, they both rise in the eastern sky and move towards the south as the evening goes on. Jupiter comes first, coming above the horizon around 2am. Venus rises later, around 4:15am or so with Mars trailing behind to the lower left. My guess is you saw Venus. Mars is too dim in the sky given it's position in orbit relative to earth (2 AUs away, meaning it's twice as far as the distance from the earth to the sun). It's barely visible with the naked eye.

The best way to tell of something is a planet or a star is that stars flicker whereas light from planets stays constant.

[edit on 12-5-2009 by paradigm619]

[edit on 12-5-2009 by paradigm619]

I would of said venus but then again it could easily be a satellite. like argentus said heavens above www.heavens-above.com... or stellarium www.stellarium.org... are exellent at showing what you see when you look up to the stars. Hope this helps

Originally posted by Revolution-2012
Interesting! Love space =D

You want planets....I'll give you planets!

my "deviant art" gallery

Enjoy.