What bright star is to the southwest from manitoba canada?

Question

tonight i was looking through a telecsope with some freinds, i live in manitoba canada. which is right above north dakota. we foudn a bright start that was to the southwest, at about 11 30 pm.

this star was spinning quite fast, and i saw a number of craters in it. i was just hoping tha tsomeone coudl tell me what it was, some planet? i dont know. but it was one of the brightest stars in the sky, thats why we singled it out

thanks, and i hope you have a crazy good night, filled with many adventures:) becuase this is the first time i really saw a star this close up, i was really amazied, i love that stuff :XD

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure you saw Jupiter.

Its actually a planet, not a star. The Earth is very close in its orbit to Jupiter right now.

Heres more:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

Answer 2

There are a lot of confusing things about what you've written there. Without even reading beyond the title of the question, my answer is that you were not looking at a star, but rather, at the planet Jupiter, which is the brightest object in the night sky right now, besides the moon of course.

However, Jupiter is a gas giant with no surface, let alone craters. Moreover, you'd have to have an unbelievably large telescope to be able to see anything the size of a crater on Jupiter from Earth. Mars and Saturn were up tonight, but set shortly after the sun set, so the time frame you gave seems wrong for them.

Then, you say it's spinning quite fast. You cannot observe the rotation of stars directly, because they are many billions of billions of kilometers away and appear as mere points of light. Hence, you either weren't looking at a star, or you weren't seeing it spin. Even the planets, with discernible surface features, do not rotate fast enough for you to notice (The Earth doesn't; why should they?). By now, I'm thoroughly confused.

One possibility, however, is that you saw the moon. The moon was visible from North America tonight. The moon has craters, which you may be referring to, but the moon does not spin from the perspective of the Earth. The moon is actually tidally locked to the Earth such that it spins exactly one time per one orbit around the Earth. This means that the same familiar face of the moon always faces the Earth.

I guess my point is that there's nothing in the night sky, now or any other time, that spins quickly, has craters, and could be mistaken for a star.

Answer 3

Were you all smoking anything, by chance?

You would not notice the spinning of a star with your scope, I assure you.  Stars do not have craters, either; and even if they did, you certainly wouldn't see them with a common telescope.

If you saw something bright that had craters, maybe you were looking at the moon; and it is not a star, FWIW.  It's that real big thing that's up in the sky tonight (and it will be full in a few days).  If it was smaller than the moon and more "star-sized" in the sky, then maybe it was Jupiter, as it is currently in the West after sunset (though how you would see craters on it, I have no idea).

And I'd say that the "spinning" you experienced could've been due to one of two things:

A. the object was moving out of the view of your scope, due to the rotation of Earth.

B. you guys were stoned out of your minds!