STRANGE VERY BRIGHT STAR LIKE THING.

Ok, I can't argue too much because I really don't know too much about photography.

Do you have a link/reference where this interpretation could be checked? Thanks.
............................................................

could not be mercury because it's setting now *before* the Sun (according to [link to www.neave.com] In fact, only Venus could be a possible explanation if it's one of the planets of the solar system.

Nice, the search continues!:-)

People keep telling me it's Venus so we wnt out and filmed it. If you look on the back of the cam you'll see how "Venus" has the shape of the objects seen in the Nasa Space transmission films.

have noticed it too, on the southwestern side usually
have been seeing it for many many months
teh weird thing is that sometimes indee dit is somehow close to the moon, depending on where the moon is
this also keeps changing somehow
I was told this is venus, so no big deal

I have however seen it move within short time over large distance from south to southwest
sometimes even within 3 minutes just vanishing at the horizon on some point over a large distance

no idea for sure what it is

Hi, angel - I'm glad you're still around and still asking questions!

Yes, those are almost certainly lens flares. There is one telltale giveaway and a few other clues (one of which is quite interesting and sometimes very useful..

The most prominent lens flares are often (not always, but *very* frequently) diagonally opposite to the light source, mirrored around the optical centre. That's hard to explain, but if you drew a cross right in the exact centre of the rectangular image frame, and then drew a line from that point to the centre of the Sun, you would find the lens flare also on that same line, but on the other side of the cross and the same distance away... If you look at those images, you will note that when the sun is a little to the left and down from centre, the flare is a little right and up. And so on. This effect is really obvious when you are videoing the sun, becasue as you move the camera around, you will see the flares moving in the opposite way.

There are often secondary and multiple flares - it depends on the lens design and how strong the contrast is. ALL lenses will flare, but if the image is low contrast you may not be able to see any effect.

The flares may be multi-coloured and affected by chromatic aberrations - purple and red flares are quite common.

Now an interesting bit of trivia. Again, this isn't *always* true, but sometimes the lens flare will give a much more accurate idea of the object's true appearance and size! Because the brightness is greatly reduced, the true size and any surface detail may be much more visible. This is particularly true when shooting the Moon - sometimes the lens flare will look better than the actual object! But again, it depends on the lens design.

I've got a few lens flare examples, inc. a video - let me know if you want links. One of my examples even got stolen by Nancy Lieder and added to her 'evidence' for Planet X - which I thought was quite hilarious at the time!

I'm probably going to bed now (had a busy few days), but I'll be back later to have a look at the other one..

cheers,

up

Just a teensy correction.. Yes, Mercury is setting before the sun... but those images *could* have been shot in the morning.. (O:

Actually, Mercury gets *completely* lost in glare even before the Sun begins to break the horizon, so it couldn't be Mercury for that reason. Plus Mercury is VERY heavily slanted to the right from the Sun (Northern Hemisphere).

So I'm just being pedantic, sorry!

Oh dear.

GK, if you scan back through this thread, you'll find all the tips necessary to avoid video disasters like that one.

I'll repeat them briefly:
- use a tripod (PLEASE!!)
- use manual focus, and show what happens as you do so
- don't use digital zoom
- don't expect a consumer grade camcorder/digicam to be able to resolve the fact that Venus is a crescent - most cannot

And finally, DON'T present huge disks or balls of light from such cameras and expect to be taken seriously.

Most folk here now know what out of focus bright lights look like, what bokeh is, and what Venus really looks like at even 40x optical zoom:

[link to www.youtube.com]

In summary - it's NOT that big, and using your camera improperly to make it that big just shows your incompetence.

By the way, GK, are you seriously suggesting you pointed an 8" Meade at Venus and couldn't focus it well enough to show the crescent?

That is HILARIOUS! (The little notch is of course some obstruction in the optical path, by the way. Or maybe a Pacman has invaded your telescope - run for it!!!)

By the way, a little tip.

Venus is VERY BRIGHT. Drop your exposure down - don't you understand the basic concept of overexposure and the blooming that results? Oh, no, of course you NEED that blooming for the effect you want. Sorry.

And using night vision is just guaranteeing you will blow it right away.. do carry on.

(O:

Sorry, but I'm not seeing any object movement! Movement of the camera, yes.

Look carefully at the shots that include roofline, and you will see the movement of both roof and object are absolutely identical. Therefore = camera movement.

With the squiggly line ones, again, unless you include background, those squiggles just tell you that the camera moved. To expose something like Venus at night, the camera will almost invariably be using a shutter speed of a second or more, and without a tripod, a second-long exposure will give you a squiggly line from handshake. Shooting at long focal lengths makes this effect much worse.

If he posts the original, out-of-camera files, I can show you how to tell this. (As I was going to do for TU, but she never wanted to join in that party.. (O:)

If Venus is now a Morning Star observed here in FL at apx 7am in the SE, then what is the "strange very bright star like object in the SW which is still there until 10pm and getting brighter ?

Venus isn't visible in the morning yet. It's still up at night in the Southwest until later this month then it will be seen in April as the "morning star."

As he said, Venus is NOT yet the 'Morning Star', so your preface is wrong. Venus sets shortly after the Sun, and over the bnext week and a bit it will get closer and clser each night before disppearing into the Sun's glare. It will reappear next month as the Morning Star.

If you want help identifying an object, you need to supply:

- the time you saw it (I'll assume 8pm)
- a bearing (you gave SW - hurrah)
- a distance above the horizon (I'll guess about 30° up)
- and a rough location or latitude helps (I'll assume mid-USA)

For those guesses, the most likely suspect would be Rigel, which is part of the VERY recognisable Orion constellation - under the three bright stars that form Orion's 'belt'.

Sirius is more to the South at that time, but is the brightest star visible after Venus sets.

If you would like to come back with a few more details, I might even post a sky chart for you, so you can identify it exactly.

ITS NOW NEARING THE END OF THE MONTH. IS 'VENUS' GONE FROM THE SW SKY IN THE EARLY EVENING NOW?

Why are you SHOUTING? (O:


Pretty much gone, yes. Depends on your eyesight and the atmospheric conditions. Right now, you can *try* to find it by looking about 45 degrees up and right from the Sun, just after it sets. Problem is, it is only about the width of your fist (at arm's length) away from the Sun. So to the naked eye it will almost certainly be lost in the Sun's glare. If you try to find it in binoculars/telescope, do NOT try this until after the sun has set..! Observing from a high location/low horizon will help, if you are desperate to try this..

It gets roughly level with the Sun around the 27/28, and then will re-appear in a couple of weeks as the "Morning Star", ie visible before dawn only.

Sorry about the all-caps. What is the condensed version of where this thread is at. I stopped viewing and posting around page 70. However, I started my first reply to this thread on page 9. If venus is gone from the sky in the early evening is it possible this is why this thread is going away? Is someone still seeing the other object in the SE sky in the early evening. Where is Angelpbj and Texas Uncensored, UP?

No problems. As a non-touch typist, I often look up and think dang, I'm not gunna type that again..

Yes, there does seem to have been a (somewhat predictable) drop in postings, now that Venus has effectively gone from obvious view.

In the South East, Saturn is the most likely contender (for USA/Europe viewers, early evening) but it's a bit more east.. Sirius is closer to South now, at that time.

Happy to post a screenshot if you want, or if you see something you want identified, just give bearing, height above horizon, time, and roughly where you were at the time..

Angelpbj seems to pop in very irregularly and is waiting on new developments, I think, and TU hates me with an intensity not often seen here and has got a little scarce.. (O;

She pops up on the occasional 'chem'trail or UFO thread.

Bingo.




Going by how GLP operates I doubt you'll ever hear from them on this subject again.

It's midnight here in Indiana and this object is extremely bright in the south west about 40 degrees up. I checked neave and there is nothing there where it should be. It is definately the strangest object I have ever viewed in the night sky.

the 27th is it's last night.

it is no longer here in hawaii

I told you that it was Venus, a somewhat brighter and mispositioned Venus... now, as expectable... it is going toward its future apparent rise on the mornings ; )

A Scientist who Cares

It wasn't mispositioned. What kind of "scientist" are you supposed to be?

Well, you really should go back and try again, and then once you get it right, come back here and explain what went wrong the first time so you can help others. OK?

Here's how you do it.

1. Go to:
[link to www.neave.com]

2. Click where it says "Click me to go stargazing"

3. Click on the Location Map (top right) to show the program where you live.

4. Click on the date and time arrows to set the details correctly.

5. Click on the sky image and move your mouse to show SW, then click again to stop it.

6. Now, if you aren't seeing SATURN and also REGULUS roughly in the right area, *you did it wrong*.


So, where was this object IN RELATION TO Saturn and Regulus?

So, as a scientist, can you please elaborate and tell me:
- how bright was/is Venus supposed to be
- how bright you believe it was, and how you measured it
- where venus was/is supposed to be
- how far away form that position it was, and how you measured it?

As far as I could see, Venus was ABSOLUTELY correctly positioned when I finally lost sight of it a couple of days ago..

Its 'transit' across the Lasco C3 field in a couple of days will verify that to *my* satisfaction, I think. How about you?

If Venus does indeed traverse across the Lasco C3 field of view from 27-29 March, starting near the very top of the cameras field of view, and moving left to right, will you agree that it is not 'mispositioned'?

Would you like me to post a Stellarium screenshot, showing (almost*) exactly how it will line up?


* - why 'almost'? Simple - I can't be bothered to give an *absolutely* perfect line up, as I don't have the patience to set up a viewing location that will account for the very slight difference in view ('parallax') between that from your location, and that from the SOHO spacecraft. But it will be VERY close, such that there will be no argument..

Upon further investigation I would have to say it's regulus based on the egg shaped extremely fast rotation which flickers like crazy.

When Venus reappears as the "morning star" next month, the light from it will be like a crescent moon at first, like it did when it was disappearing as the "evening star." Right now it is like a new moon. Isn't the universe amazing? You will have no choice but to think so.

Atypically bright and somewhat weirdly located as i said. It reached quite more than 14 degrees from the ecliptic while it should not be more than (about) 3 degrees.

Other than that it was Venus, soon it would be visible as a morning star. Chao. A Scientist who Cares

Well, perhaps a carefull observer too.

If it was not then explain how it could get more than 14 degrees from the ecliptic when the orbital plane of venus was known to cut ecliptic (earths plane) by less than 3 degrees? Could you explain that? The geometry didnt fit.

S. who C.