This morning I went to the window and looked outside and saw the brightest object I've ever seen in the sky, short of the Hale-Bopp comet. (and the Moon. and the Sun, for you nitpickers out there) It definately twinkled and was definately not moving. It was viewable from 1 hour prior to sunrise to sometime after sunrise (VERY bright object)

Does anyone have any idea what I was looking at?
P.S. located in Eastern Canada at this point in time.

I haven't been on the BABB in over a year, so just saying HI GUYS!

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Kristin M

Venus and Mars are both up before the Sun. If you are in a northern latitude then they would appear southeast. Maybe you are talking about Venus.

A ha! what I was seeing (according to the Heavens Above page) was the combined brilliance of both Mars AND Venus - which I guess might be why it was twinkling (light from Mars being refracted against the atmosphere of Venus?)

Planets in general are not supposed to twinkle. That's what fooled me. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Sky from my house this morning:
http://www.heavens-above.com/skychar...on&BW=0&SZ=600

Hi Kristen. And welcome to the board! You most definitely saw Venus, as it's at it's brightest right now in the East/South East sky early in the morning. It shouldn't have been "twinkling" though, as only points of light (like stars) suffer from atmospheric conditions that cause this. Could it be you were viewing through tree branches or some such thing??? Wally

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. . . My moustache is touching my brain!!!!

That's not really true. Planets can twinkle too, if air turbulence is great enough. They just are much less suceptible to it. Since it was low on the horizon, it also had to go through many more layers of air as well, making it even more likely to twinkle.

But it's gotta be Venus. Most people just can't believe how bright it can get. Mars wouldn't be involved unless it was literally right on top of Venus, which I seriously doubt is the case right now.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

See:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/twinkle.html

David - take a look at the link I posted. They were so close they were touching - and I would have noticed 2 very bright objects right next to each other. The next closest object was a dim star.

Thanks for the link, Aurorae.

And thanks for the welcome, Wally - I remember you from the old board, I think!

Actually, compared to Venus, Mars is pretty dim right now. The dime "star" you saw, was probably Mars. Although they are close together now, they are easily resolvable with the naked eye. They had their closest approach Sunday morning I believe, and are now slowly moving apart.

Rob

Hmmmm... Venoma from the SDMB? I knew your handle was familiar!

The same thing has happened to me every day this week. I get in the shower, and while the water is heating up I peek out the high window, and lo! there is a very bright object. The first time I saw it was very cool, because the very thin waxing crescent Moon was just a few degrees to the bottom left.

I did take a look at the link, and no, they weren't touching. The problem is that the map's resolution is not very high, so at that scale they appear to be touching. But if you increase it to about 1000 pixels or more, you can see that they have a reasonable seperation between them.

But I will admit they are very close, closer than I expected. At that distance, the glare of Venus might be so bright that it would make Mars almost invisible to naked-eye vision.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

See http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...3111&forum=2&5

Here in New Zealand, Venus is currently high in the north around 10:30am, and visible with the naked eye until about 3pm when it sinks in the west. It is at its brightest, magnitude -4.7, so appears very bright in a dark sky before sunrise.

Venus looks absolutely gorgeous from where I am, but I haven't been able to spot Mars except for once. Jupiter, on the other hand, is very bright and almost right overhead. I keep stopping random people on the way to school to point these planets out.

Not supposed to, but they can. The BA even has one of his chapters in his book headed by this couplet:
Twinkle, twinkle, little planet,
Can'tobserve so better can it.
Meaning, when the seeing is so bad that the planets twinkle, you might as well go back in the house and hang it up for the night.

According to SkyMap, Venus and Mars are nearly a degree and a half apart--three times the width of the moon. That's pretty far. And Mars is mag. 1.7, not quite as bright as nearby Spica, but you should be able to see it easily.

<font size=-1>[ Fixed poem ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GrapesOfWrath on 2002-12-07 07:23 ]</font>