What the heck is that?

[alliegalinoz (Allex)]

Hi everyone from an old newbie... Simple question:

Every night for the past week or so, from my location, we can see a very bright star in the west, and it is larger than others. It first appears high in the sky, and within two or three hours has dropped below the horizon. There are two much smaller and duller stars below it.

At times, either we are smoking something funny, or we are seeing what we call small puffs of white encircling the star... i.e. its like a haze appears arounde the star and then disappears.

Would love to know what we are seeing.

alliegalinoz

Great site btw!!!

[Astrobserver99 (Rob)]

Probably Venus is the big one and Mars and Spica the smaller ones below. The white puffs are probably just atmospheric turbulence...either that or you are smoking something

[PCH (Paul)]

Hi Allie....

sounds like it might be Venus you're seeing. Others may have some ideas re the other smaller stars that are close by.

Cheers,

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

At the risk of sounding like an idiot I will answer but it sounds like Venus sometimes when Venus gets low it can do some strange things if you know Venus and it is not that then I am sorry for my suggestion but it is my best guess.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Take out some Binoculars, you should be able to see Venus in a partial phase, as you would see the moon. See this image by Paul Haese

[alliegalinoz (Allex)]

Thanx to everyone that answered... cola flavoured chupa chup to you all!

[Radiation (Tudor)]

If you run into the same problem identifying something download a program called stellarium, it's free and you can set it to whatever time you want to see what's up in the sky.