Hi Astronut,

Apologies if my question has been answered already, but this thread is getting quite long.

If the bright object in question is Venus, and all the planets etc are still in the places where they should be,
then logic suggests that this bright "flare / over-exposure" would have occurred hundreds if not thousands of times before with the same imaging systems.

Please show us some of these occurrences and then us doomtards can let you get back to your life.

Thanks!

Venus flares like that every time it passes through the heliospheric imager:
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]