A very bright light in the sky right now - West facing

Pixel8

Anyone know what that fairly bigger than normal light is in the sky tonight? I think its in the west but its very big, bigger than a planet.

A friend of mine thinks its the ISS space station, anyone agree that this is even possible? I've never seen the ISS with the naked eye in the sky...

bandit197

Im almost certain its the planet Venus. ISS crosses the sky in about a min.

Pixel8

cool, anyone else see it or have any idea what it might be?

robk24

that's definitely Venus...

looks huge in the sky, watch tomorrow evening from 4.15 in a southerly direction and you'll even be able to see it in the daylight once the sun starts to go below the horizon...

Fabio

Guys I was looking towards the south-west area of the sky this evening and saw a very bright star...possibly Venus.

It was around 4pm and it was quite low down in the sky...

I was going to post up a new thread but then saw this - could that have been Venus?

Pixel8

Fabio wrote: »

Guys I was looking towards the south-west area of the sky this evening and saw a very bright star...possibly Venus.

It was around 4pm and it was quite low down in the sky...

I was going to post up a new thread but then saw this - could that have been Venus?

Yeah thats what i was thinking, it was very big for a planet. Is Venus at the stage of its orbit when its closest to Earth?

I could almost see what looked like rays coming from around it, weird...

iainmacl

Yup it's Venus alright as other posters have commented. The ISS and indeed other spacecraft can be seen on clear nights, but arc their way across the sky in a relatively short time of about 1-3 minutes. However, if you want to know when you can see the ISS and where to look then there is a really cool website that provides all the information you need. It's worth looking out for this since it is impressive to reflect on the fact that there are folk up there working away whilst you are watching them as a tiny dot.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/

for sighting details click on the link on that page. It gives details for a number of locations in Ireland, telling which direction to face and what exact time it will pass over. (Galway example: http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=Ireland&region=None&city=Galway )

Some amateur astronomers have seen this as a challenge and have actually used telescopes and cameras to photograph or video the ISS as it passes over. You can see amazing shots at:

http://buytelescopes.com/gallery/view_photo.asp?c=15770&pid=14787

or this incredibly detailed one with a larger telescope run by high school students in Boston

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/06/picture-this-sp.html

For other interesting and basic introduction to astronomy topics you might be interested in a new blog for International Year of Astronomy (2009) which will have monthly podcasts on key topics and casual simple, commentaries ideal for the 'armchair' astronomer!

http://right-ascension.blogspot.com/

Kalli

yes. it's venus. it's about as bright as the moon, it's southwesterly. You can already see it when the sun is going down in twilight as the only star in the sky. Once the sun is down and dark it's VERY prominent.
It will go down in about the same path as the sun does, just a few hours later.

as mentioned before, ISS crosses the sky. It's constantly moving and it is very fast. a very long pass of ISS (where you can see from horizon to horizon) would be about 4 minutes ...

Kalli

Kevster

Venus alright... ...I was looking at it through my telescope. Amazing pictures of the ISS there iainmacl, by the way. However, the link you gave for viewing the ISS is for Galway times. Here is the base page:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

Just choose the country (Duh....'Ireland'!) and then your nearest city. You can also track satellites and the ISS here:

http://www.n2yo.com/

Pixel8

Excellent and comprehensive information, thank you everyody!

Thargor

http://www.stellarium.org/

is a handy app to have for checking this kind of thing or seeing if theres any highlights worth dragging the telescope out for, just go into settings and tell it where you are, it has a lot of Irish locations in it already.