Themightylard

Hi, Apologies for the delay in responding. Short reply is that you were correct and I don't know my left from my right! Excuse me for the length of the following but I need to write it down in order to give myself some mental closure following a few nights of sleepless confusion 😁 At the moment I'm sat in my lounge looking out at the mountain opposite, which means that I'm faced, roughly, in a South Easterly direction. In MY mind, the star I saw on Thursday evening (around 11pm) would be 90° to my left, therefore approx North East. When I used/held up the iPad 'night sky' app the other evening, it showed that Vega, low-down in the North East, was likely to be what I had been looking at......To reinforce this when 'Priesters' replied to my initial posting on your forum he also noted Vega in the North East.....happy days! However, you then go and spoil it by pointing out that I should have been heading/looking North West, and not North East. This completely knocked me off-kilter and gave my wife the opportunity to add more ammunition in her endeavour to prove that my directional skills are extremely poor. As a consequence, and for the first time since we moved here 12yrs ago, I've been looking at compass readings and, well, who'd have thought it - our narrow, windy, village lane actually means that by the time I reach the 'star-viewing' spot (at the end of our lane) I've been turned through 180° and not 90, so I was facing (as you stated) a North Westerly direction instead. Unbelievable! It does mean that it wasn't Vega that I saw. If I can remember tonight I'll have another look to find out what it was, ensuring I know my left from my right. If anything, I've gained the knowledge of knowing where Vega should be 😂 My wife is loving this 😭 Thanks anyway to you and whoever else responded to my initial posting. Sorry if I've wasted anyone's time. I'm still not convinced my head is shot though!....never needed a map.....it has to a bloke thing I expect. Regards.

You have a point and I have must made a mistake in my recollection BUT bear with me and I'll get a google street photo of from where I saw it last off. I actually got home and mentioned it to my wife (who had no interest whatsoever 🙄) and went straight back out in the car together with the iPad and drove to where I could still see it (too low down to spot from my house).....only to discover (stupidly on my part) that the night sky app wouldn't work without my Wi-Fi.

That's what I thought but didn't have the confidence to write it on here.....I'm so glad you did because it just did not make sense. I drove the main, virtually flat, road from Pontypool to Abergavenny and it was generally UP centre left in my windscreen but when I got home was difficult to spot above the distant tree tops......very strange

Thank you! I can't be described as anything near to an astronomer but I very often have a peak around and do get excited when we get clear skies. I also have a 'night sky' app on my iPad and will sometimes (although not very often) refer to it in regard to planetary positions BUT last night's journey driving home toward Abergavenny had me initially assuming that what I had immediately seen ,when I got into the car, had to be a helicopter headlight as it was too big to be anything else.....I can now only assume that the random cloud cover must have un-focused it to make it appear that large. The strange thing though is that it also appeared to be moving lower down into the northern east sky WAY faster than any star should have (in my humble opinion), given that I was only driving for about 30 mins....so much so that it bothered my enough to join this forum in the hope that someone else had seen it. I did check the app and Vega seemed to be the likely culprit although it did remain somewhat larger than I thought it should do and I don't understand why I've never seen anything (other than an obvious planet) like that previously, given that I do take an interest. Thanks anyway. 👍

Hi, Apologies if I'm posting in completely the wrong place but I've literally just joined (few minutes ago) simply to ask if anyone can tell me what the very bright star low down in the north east (I'm in south wales) is right now? Just driven home and thought it must be a planet but a quick google and it can't be.....anyone? Thanks