Bright object seen near moon in Europe

[Sam Fink]

Hi,

   I live in Northern Europe and tonight I saw a bright object near a new moon which I had no clue what it could be. I have never seen such bright object, it did not move and still there. I thought it could be Venus, but it is just too bright, any idea?

[skyejim]

Sam, that was indeed Venus!  It was just a couple of degrees away from the slender crescent Moon from your location just after dusk - if you were directly facing the Moon it would've been above and slightly to the right.  (I used Copenhagen as a viewing location in my Starry Night Pro software in recreating the evening just past for northern Europe).

At an apparent magnitude of -4.2 Venus is the brightest thing in the sky right now, other than the Sun and Moon.


Clear Skies!  (And I wish I had some; it will be even closer from my location after sunset this evening - but we have solid clouds and rain this afternoon in Southern California!)

Jim

[engaaraa]

Here in the caribeean Venus was directly north (right) of the crecsent moon tonight. Through the telescope a nice "half venus" could be seen clearly.
180 degrees (east), you could see somethig just as bright rising. That would be Jupiter. The night was"mushy" though. I was ab;e to get a nice view of Saturn high in the sky. I was accused of having a saturn Photo hanging behind the eyepiece , so nice it was.
No hope of enjoying anything fainter in my sky aside of possibly M44 and 41.
I was busy enjoying my birthday party too. So the scope went back in quite early in any case...

[Qazaq2003]

Engaaraa,
I had that happen to me as well, accused of having slides of planets in my scope, and trying to pass them off as the real thing, sucks when you are trying to show the wonders of the night sky to passersby. Q

[engaaraa]

Maybe we should miscollimate a bit for effect?