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Anyone else notice that enormously bright new "star"?


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Hi guys,

I'm new here. I made my account actually to ask about this object in particular. For ease I'll call it a star although I don't know if that is actually what it is.

I noticed it last year, maybe around September? It's massive compared to everything else in the sky (apart from the moon) and is usually diagonally above another bright star. The bright star it is above would be the brightest star in the sky if not for this enormous thing. I think the star it is above may be Venus. I always assumed Venus was the brightest star in the sky and I used to look at it regularly with the naked eye throughout my life and I have never seen this massive star before. I originally thought it was that space station thing that I heard something about a while back but I just thought I'd try to find out from people who'd probably know.

Im a little bit freaked out to be honest! The night sky in general looks different and I can't but my finger in it.

If anyone can tell me what this ginormous "new star," is because I've seriously never seen it before Sep 2011.

Thanks!

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I'm guessing that's it. I know when I saw Venus a few months ago, more south than it is now (from where I am), I was all "what the heck is that? Is that getting brighter?" and is what got my skin itching for a scope.

I finally couldn't take it any more, it was too bright and big. So I got Stellarium and looked out west to see if it was a known thing.. turns out, it was Venus and Jupiter (I verified Jupiter with my 10x50 binos, you can see at least 3 moons around Jupiter with those.. when you can hold your hands steady enough :( ).

Even though I know what it is now, I still want my scope so I can get to watching these things float around our solar system :(

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I think it might be. Wow. I can never remember Venus looking so large. Why does it appear bigger?

I do remember seeing something different before so maybe I'm seeing two different things and thinking they're the same. The other celestial body I saw was bigger, rounder and closer to the moon and appeared to glow yellow/orange rather than the white/blue most "stars" appear in the night sky. Was there a space station sent up last year?

Wow. That picture is gorgeous. How did you take such a clear photograph? Do you need a special camera to capture stars?

I am desperate for a telescope but I might start off with a pair of binoculars because I have a tendency of getting to excited and then loosing interest lol I doubt I'd loose interest with looking at the stars though.

I visited a friends house in the country recently and the sky was AMAZING. Like nothing I'd ever seen before. FILLED with stars and planets. Beautiful.

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The 'house' is my two year old daughters play house in the garden! It's about 6 feet square, but gives me somewhere to put my camera, lenses, start charts etc, when I'm out observing! I did buy it for her, honest!!

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Deffo venus, jupiter appears smaller than venus because it`s further away, you wonn`t make out much detail on venus (lots of cloud caused by a runaway greenhouse effect) but because it is closer to the sun than us you should be able to see phase`s as with the moon, only had my scope 3 weeks but worth a look although the lower jupiter is more visually pleasing.

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