The brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. Bright enough to cast shadows from a genuinely dark site, and routinely mistaken for an aircraft.
The brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. Bright enough to cast shadows from a genuinely dark site, and routinely mistaken for an aircraft.
At the moment Venus shines at magnitude -4.8 and lies 0.40 astronomical units from Earth. Its position on the sky is right ascension 14.13 hours, declination -19.5°.
Planets shine with a steady light while stars twinkle. That is not folklore: stars are point sources and the atmosphere smears them, whereas a planet presents a tiny disc that averages out the turbulence. If it is bright and calm, it is a planet.