Caught out by Venus!

[Paul M]

I've been attending college in Bolton all week and have been leaving home around 07:15 to beat the traffic and have time to glug a couple of gallons of coffee before class.

My motorway journey heading is all in the SE quadrant - towards to dawn twilight.

This morning was very clear, save a distant bank of cloud low in the E. 

I was surprised to spot a bright "star" above the clouds in the SE. Didn't just look quite bright enough for Venus. Aircraft landing lights perhaps? No it was static.

Surely it can't be Venus that's barely out of Inferior Conjunction? I was thinking. No, what else can it be? A supernova in the Milky Way ?!?!

Can't pull over to check SkySafari or SGL for supernova reports. I'll have to wait until I park in Bolton.

I watched the object all the way to my turning off the M61 when it disappeared behind some low "scud" in bright twilight.

As soon as I parked I checked SkySafari and was slightly disappointed to find that it was Venus!

Then when I looked at SGL my ticker missed a beat when I skipped down the threads and saw the word "supernova" in a couple of titles....

What could have been....

[Cygnus_X1]

I had a similar experience, I think it was in December 1991. Heading down the M4 motorway from London on a freezing winter morning  at about 6am, on the way to do the Brecon Beacons, I noticed a quite bright object in the sky....and it was SSE, quite an angular distance from were the Sun was due to rise. it just seemed too far south to be Venus. I remembered thinking..it can't be Venus...that far from the Sun and that close to due south. But indeed on checking later, it was. It was one of the furthest bright elongations of the past few decades.

[Paul M]

No Venus this morning. Set off extra early this morning due to weather.<br />

Roads awash with cloud juice <br />

<br />

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk<br />

<br />