Is the glowing object always visible between 11pm and 12am?

[B. Elliott]

It certainly sounds like a planet. Camcorders can do weird things when they are outside their normal range of capablities, but I don't have any real experience pointing them at planets.

How big was the disk on the screen? Jupiter and Venus are big enough to show a disk with just 10x zoom.

Probably around 1/8th of an inch. When played back on a 27" television it was approximately the size of a nickel.

I'd really like to figure out which planet it was. The strange part was the red flickering color it sometimes had. One person at first thought it was a police helicopter way off in the distance.

 

[russ_watters]

Also: With an automatic camera, they will virtually always be overexposed and show up as globs. Sometimes if they are overexposed a lot, the camera will protect itself by blotting out the center in black. We've had people post pictures of the sun like that here.

 

[russ_watters]

I'd really like to figure out which planet it was.

Lemme see if I can find it for you...

[edit]
Sept 12, 2000, from Knoxsville, Jupiter rose at midnight just north of due east. At 1:00AM it would have been 15 degrees up, just high enough to clear nearby houses or trees. As the sun was rising at 7:00, it was 73 degrees up, due south. It was extremely bright - almost airplane landing light bright.

No possible planets up in April that year.

 

[rewebster]

What do you mean by traverse the sky? Does it mean to rise from the horizon and then disappear again to the new horizon.

how high in the sky was it? (approx. degrees up from the horizon)

 

[B. Elliott]

Lemme see if I can find it for you...

[edit]
Sept 12, 2000, from Knoxsville, Jupiter rose at midnight just north of due east. At 1:00AM it would have been 15 degrees up, just high enough to clear nearby houses or trees. As the sun was rising at 7:00, it was 73 degrees up, due south. It was extremely bright - almost airplane landing light bright.

No possible planets up in April that year.

That has to have been it. Thanks Russ!

By chance where did you get the info on the luminosity? Was Jupiter exceptionally close at that time?

 

[russ_watters]

By chance where did you get the info on the luminosity? Was Jupiter exceptionally close at that time?

I got all of that from Starry Night. And no, Jupiter's brightness doesn't change all that much from month to month. It is more about location - it is only in a good place to see in the evening a few months a year.

 

[tgt]

That glowing object in the OP is almost certainly not a planet as it dosen't appear in the same location every night. Is that a good enough reason?

 

[russ_watters]

Good enough reason for what? Your description is vague enough that I can't give anything as specific as I was able to find for B. Elliot. Dates, times, locations, directions, etc. And the fixed camera was also a big help. When I look at the sky during the day, I often get the sensation that the entire sky is moving away from me. I know our eyes are not to be trusted. Your description was based almost entirely on your eyes, and I recognize a lot of what you said as common misperceptions, not real, hard facts. So what you have said is not exactly what a planet should look like, but it is also not inconsistent with common descriptions of planets. Regarldess, it isn't enough to positively identify or rule out that you were looking at a planet.

I asked you some questions before that you didn't answer. Could you be more specific about the following:

What direction were you looking (I mean north, south, east, west)?
How high in the sky was it?
What time was it?
What was the date?
What was your geographic location?

B. Elliot's description contained all of those critical elements - yours contained none.

 

[tgt]

Good enough reason for what? Your description is vague enough that I can't give anything as specific as I was able to find for B. Elliot. Dates, times, locations, directions, etc. And the fixed camera was also a big help. When I look at the sky during the day, I often get the sensation that the entire sky is moving away from me. I know our eyes are not to be trusted. Your description was based almost entirely on your eyes, and I recognize a lot of what you said as common misperceptions, not real, hard facts. So what you have said is not exactly what a planet should look like, but it is also not inconsistent with common descriptions of planets. Regarldess, it isn't enough to positively identify or rule out that you were looking at a planet.

I asked you some questions before that you didn't answer. Could you be more specific about the following:

What direction were you looking (I mean north, south, east, west)?
How high in the sky was it?
What time was it?
What was the date?
What was your geographic location?

B. Elliot's description contained all of those critical elements - yours contained none.

That's because I don't know any of the answers to those questions. The time was roughly between 11pm and 12pm. On one particular day, it was clearly there between that hour when looking outside my window. So if it was a planet then on all days, it should be there between that time?