What is that beside the moon?

Question

I just looked out and noticed a planet. Which planet is that?

Answer 1

There are no naked eye planets anywhere in the vicinity of tonight's moon.  Unless you are looking significantly west and a slightly south of it, then you're seeing Jupiter.

Answer 2

If u watched the moon at early morning or late evening then venus

Answer 3

Without knowing your location, the position of the moon, the time, and the direction in which you are facing its hard to tell for sure.

But I can cut the options down through reasoning:

This is Jupiter if this object meets the following:

- you saw this after sunset, and before sun rise.

- this is the brightest object in the night sky, besides the moon.

- your facing the south-east direction

--Jupiter is currently the brightest object in the night sky besides the moon. All you need is a good set of binoculars to take a good look at the planet. You will be able to see 4 of its moons as long as they aren't in transit or behind the planet. If you have a good telescope, then you'd love to see a transit, but with only binoculars, you can't see it very well. And with a small telescope, you might be able to see the big red spot if its visible.

Answer 4

At the moment, Uranus appears fairly close to the moon looking from Earth, and Neptune is moderately close by also. Jupiter is quite a way off.

However, with the naked eye you can't see either of those first two. No other planets are currently visible near the moon.

Are you sure it's a planet and not a star?

Edit: Here are a couple of images I just took in Celestia:

http://www.imagebucket.net/bucket/is.php...

http://www.imagebucket.net/bucket/is.php...

As you can see, Uranus and Neptune are the only planets near by.

When I took the images I was "parked" 4000 Km over Illinois with the current time set.

Answer 5

In western Europe 18/19.08.08  The moon is rising in the east and setting in the west.  There are no visible planets in the vicinity of the moon with the naked eye. Jupiter is rising 2 hours earlier than the moon in the south east and setting in the south west... (which is quite a distance away) The brightest star to the right of the moon is Markab.  VENUS is nowhere to be seen !!! .  Hope that helps  

Answer 6

Hmm its hard to tell what planet you are looking at without knowing your exact location and the direction you are looking...but if I were to take a guess it would be Venus.  Venus is a planet very close to earth...when I say close to earth, I mean compared to other planets.

So I would say I'm 95% sure its Venus.

Answer 7

What did you just smoke?  :-)

I believe it is a plant you see out there, not a planet!

Answer 8

The only planet that is clearly visible right now is Jupiter, though it is a fair distance away from the Moon's position in the sky right now, way off to the right.