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**northoftheborder**

I really should remember to take my camera one morning...

Regardless what I'm seeing is what I'm pretty sure is Venus, but in my whole life I have never seen anything so bright and stand out like some distant sun.

Data for you star experts..

I live in southern Ontario in Stratford. When driving into the office at 5:30am I am travelling due east according to my vehicles onboard compass. When the compass is showing east the star is immediately in front of me directly at the 12 o'clock position and the big dipper is at the 10 o'clock position to my left..

Maybe I'm blind but I have done this commute for 12 years on the same road and have never noticed what I think is Venus being this prominent and this bright ever before and its been this way for at least 3 weeks and I would expect Venus to move and vary in size and brightness.

This isn't another doom thread, just an observation.

**Leroy Jenkins!**

If you have a Smart Phone there's a very nice app called Google Sky.It tells you where and what everything is by moving you phone in that direction.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...le+sky+app

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 27173 09-29-2012 03:21 AM

Leroy Jenkins! Wrote:

If you have a Smart Phone there's a very nice app called Google Sky.It tells you where and what everything is by moving you phone in that direction.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...le+sky+app

You can get a phone free, courtesy of that douchbag rerunnung for office in the Black... ahem.... Whitehouse.

**northoftheborder**

Leroy Jenkins! Wrote:

If you have a Smart Phone there's a very nice app called Google Sky.It tells you where and what everything is by moving you phone in that direction.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...le+sky+app

I'll check , thanks..

Unfortunately my "smart" phone is a Blackberry and the model I have isn't that smart....lol. maybe I can load it up on my tablet and take that with me since it has a GPS as well.

**northoftheborder**

LoP Guest Wrote:

Leroy Jenkins! Wrote:
If you have a Smart Phone there's a very nice app called Google Sky.It tells you where and what everything is by moving you phone in that direction.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...le+sky+app

You can get a phone free, courtesy of that douchbag rerunnung for office in the Black... ahem.... Whitehouse.

<<< lives in Canada :( no free phone for me....but I do get "free" healthcare...well freeish..

**Mother Mary**

LoP Guest Wrote:

Leroy Jenkins! Wrote:
If you have a Smart Phone there's a very nice app called Google Sky.It tells you where and what everything is by moving you phone in that direction.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...le+sky+app

You can get a phone free, courtesy of that douchbag rerunnung for office in the Black... ahem.... Whitehouse.

Not that this belongs here. but the phones they give you through that program do not have app capabilities.

To the OP....YES....that particular planet is brighter then I had ever seen before. I think it might be Venus, but the brightness is what gets me too. I watched it for weeks a few years ago and it has been that way since.

**Munchaab** lop guest User ID: 123759 09-29-2012 03:33 AM

Yes - due east at 05:30 is Venus, see:

[Image: CE2C_50664FD2.jpg]

**Johntaraz**

Agree with MM, I have noticed it in the early morning the last few weeks, and believe it is Venus also.

It is on the far side of the sun, so it is reflecting its full side of sun back towards the earth. Like a full moon.

I have looked at it through my telescope when it is less bright and at a half and 3/4 crescent.

**PENDULUM**

It was huge on stereo B the last couple of days...

**DanfromtheHills**

Munchaab Wrote:

Yes - due east at 05:30 is Venus, see:

http://neave.com/planetarium/

Yep, looks like Venus.

**northoftheborder**

Thanks for the confirmations and to the member putting me onto the sky map app. It works amazing on my Acer tablet Heartflowers

and I know what's coming with me on my nightly walks from now on.

I thought that was Venus...

But next question is, why is it so much brighter and I guess bigger then I have ever noticed. And I mean literally ever in my whole 44 years of life...maybe I'm just more observant as I grow older but is something special this year about alignments, or ????

**roadtoad**

exactly. I've been asking the same question for over a year. Planeterium won't help you, it just shows you where venus is. Of course it hasn't changed position. that isn't the problem.
I'm 72, and I can remember how bright venus and jupiter were 40 years ago, they are more than 10 times brighter now, than they were then.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 119076 09-29-2012 05:25 AM

Are you familiar with Shosho?

**chookaKahn NLI** lop guest User ID: 91311 09-29-2012 05:41 AM

re Venus brightness, maybe because it's currently caught up with our own orbit and reflects sun much more than usual- remember the transit? This could be usual phenomena that occurs either side of the transit [IDK- just an assumption]:

"...Compared to Earth's orbital plane, Venus is about three degrees out."

"When we see Venus, which usually happens in the early morning or late evening, it generally seems to pass a little above or below the Sun because its orbital plane is a little bit out from our perspective."

"So Venus and Earth only line up in the exact same orbital plane in relation to the Sun, a couple of times every few hundred years," he says.

"Venus goes around the Sun every 224.7 Earth days, so it's buzzing around far quicker than Earth is," says O'Neill.

"By the time it takes the Earth to complete one orbit of the Sun, Venus has gone around almost one-and-a-half times. That's why they don't meet up on exactly the same alignment very often."

"And the fact that Venus is on a slightly elliptical orbit makes matters worse," says O'Neil

"Venus will arrive at the point where our two ecliptic planes line up a bit earlier this time than eight years ago," says O'Neill.

"In another eight years time, Venus will arrive at that point before Earth gets there, and we won't see a transit. Another eight years on, it will be a little more ahead again, and that will continue for another 105-and-a-half years — until it eventually catches Earth again, at the other side of the Sun."

The next transit after the 6 June 2012 will be in 2117..."

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2...510139.htm

][ lop guest User ID: 118222 09-29-2012 05:45 AM

planetarium

http://neave.com/planetarium/