Very bright star in sky to the upper left of the moon? (Read other answers please help with this)?

Question

Hello,

I have been researching this question.

I live in Norwalk CT and last week around 2:30-4:00 am I Saw a VERY bright star to the left of the moon. More to the upper left sort of an angle. I have heard it could be Jupiter or Venus or the space station and planets do not twinkle. This had a slight twinkle though. At first I thought it was a plane because I could have sworn it was moving but seemed stationary. I one other night saw it again and I might have been imagining this but it did seem to be moving up and to the left of the moon at a VERY SLOW rate that was hardly noticeable which leads me to believe this was the space station. What EXACTLY was this? It was kind of big bigger than a star as well. Are there any websites with Star Maps that are EASY to read, I am not too good with the latitudes and longitudes. A lot of the sites I found were kind of tricky. I was trying to post a response to previous questions but couldn't see where to post it. Was this the spacestation?

Answer 1

I have checked the night sky during last week for your location and I find that Jupiter was to the upper left of the moon in the early hours of June 20th. By the following night, Jupiter was to the right of the moon and a day or two later, would have no longer have been anywhere near the moon. I can only assume that the second object you saw near the moon was a plane.

Venus is currently too close to the sun to be visible. The Space Station is a similar brightness to Jupiter, but its movement is obvious - in fact it can move right across the sky in a few minutes. If its movement was hardly noticeable, then it wasn't the Space Station. You can currently see it in the morning sky before dawn. Predictions are available from http://www.heavens-above.com/

There are star maps at the Sky & Telescope website which show current items of interest in the sky, rather than complete star maps. You could have a look at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing...