Can you help me identify a bright object in southern sky?

Question

I live in New England, and am seeing a bright object due south, maybe just barely to the southeast. It's about a middle of the way up. It's about 50 degrees up, relative to the ground.

Anybody know what this is? It looks too bright to be a star, so I'm guessing it's a planet. (Saturn?)

Answer 1

yup, Jupiter

take a look at this page, showing the current positions of the planets.

Earth is the little + in the circle and Jupiter is the weird symbol that looks like a cross between a 2 and a 4.

Jupiter is about as close to Earth as it ever gets.

Answer 2

It is the international space station

Answer 3

Definitely Jupiter, the largest planet is our solar system.

Uranus and Pluto are in that same segment of sky, but you can't see either with the naked eye.

Answer 4

My bet would be Jupiter if you are in the northern hemisphere.

http://www.stellarium.org/

AND

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

These are both great freeware that you can download to answer many questions that you have about the cellestial targets in your sky. These are what I use. Just tell them where you are and they will tell you what you see.

Another good free one is:

http://www.earth.google.com/

But on this one you have to click on the sky feature to see what is in the sky above you.

Enjoy

Answer 5

Jupiter is currently the brightrest star-like object in the night sky, although soon Venus will come out of the Sun's glare and will be visible in the western sky after sunset. When this happens, Venus will become the brightrest star-like object in the night sky, thus making Jupiter the second brightrest star-like object in the night sky.

Tonight, as seen from Boston, Jupiter will rise in the south-eastern sky at approximately 8:00 PM local time, although you will not likely see it until it gets dark, at about 9:00 PM. It will be due south at approximately 12:30 AM and at that time it will be approximately 25 degrees above the horizon. This is almost 1/3 of the distance between the horizon and the zenith.

By the way, I selected Boston because you mentioned that you live in New England. However, the times, directions, and angles mentioned above should be pretty accurate regardless of where in New England you actually live.

Answer 6

depending on direction (east--west) east would probably be jupiter west would probably be saturn