Expert: Tom Whiting - 3/15/2009

Question
Tom, this evening and last evening we saw a very bright star or planet due west of our current location in clayton ny (13624). We see the star/planet after sunset and if sinks and disappears below the horizon about 9:00 P.M. It is by far brighter than any object in the sky, we even thought it was a helicopter over Kingston Ontario but it seemed too bright or too close to be over Kingston. We put the binoculars on it and it is unlike any star we have seen before. We were thinking Saturn or Sirius (sp?). appreciate your view. Don

Answer
Hi Don,
Yes, that' the super-bright planet Venus we've been watching in
the West...well, SW from December thru February, then due west,
now actually a little north of west, setting around 9 or 9:30 edt
depending on where your location is in the eastern time zone.
Erie PA it sets around 9:15 pm where from your location east of
Erie it would be a few minutes earlier.

Steadily held binoculars will reveal a deep crescent shape now,
as the inner planets of Venus and Mercury go through phases just
like our moon, due to the sun-earth-planet phase angle. So right
now the crescent is becoming bigger and bigger, but less and less
illuminated fraction as Venus will soon pass between the Earth
and sun, on or about March 27th (inferior conjunction).

Then the planet rapidly jumps into our early morning eastern dawn
sky by late April, reaching another maximum brightness on or about
May 1st, and rising at the crack of dawn in the east-northeast, and
remaining an early morning eastern sky object for the balance of
the year.
In order of brightness, Venus is 3rd after the sun and moon, with
Jupiter in 4th place, rising now just before the crack of dawn in
the east.
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA

PS: Saturn is the bright starlike object high in the southeast (in eastern Leo) at 10 pm now, while Sirius (the dog star and brightest REAL star in our night sky) is in the SW at that time.
Tom

FOLLOW UP:
Oh, so Venus is currently heading back toward the sun from our
viewpoint, setting a full 6 minutes earlier each night, so it will
only be visible in the evening western sky just another 10-12 more
nights, so don't delay watching it....it will soon disappear from our
western evening sky.
Tom