Venus is Acting Up

[lookbeyond]

Hey guys. I know it's been a seriously LONG time since I've come back to visit, and I offer my most humble of apologies. I'll certainly be back more in the near future, I promise. Life got in the way for a bit there, and things are calming down again. I have only popped in to say this one thing...

There is something in the sky right now that is NOT venus, but I think it is pretending to be. Stellarium and other similar software shows nothing where the object actually is, but it is "conveniently" close enough to where Venus is supposed to be, so people are going to obviously report that this is Venus. It is not. When I look at the current apparent magnitude of Venus, at "official" sources, the magnitude is way too low to be this super bright, FLASHY object in the sky.

I do not know exactly what it is, but it is not Venus. It is actually brighter than Sirius usually is. I will try to take pictures through my telescope tonight, as I am expecting to have clear skies.

I'll be back soon, I promise! I love and miss you all.

- Church

Church, i have to agree, the extreme size and brightness has often made me catch my breath in the past several months, i dont remember Venus being like this ever in my life and im no spring chicken,lb

[Sooz]

Great to see you back Churchy. Love Sooz

[Church]

Good to be here, everyone, thank you for the warmth.

I need to clarify and say that, before, when I said Venus is brighter than sirius usually is, what I meant to say was that it is scintillating more than sirius does. Venus is definitely brighter than sirius, so I don't want to confuse anyone. But Venus is not supposed to flash colors!

Colleen, I like what you said, bringing in our larger transit through the universe into the picture. That made me think more! And Malc, you really are on point with what I'm actually thinking about the whole deal!

I am going to come out and say it: I don't think The Venus in our sky is what we are being told it is. Either that, or something else is making sure that it "inserts" itself between us and the "real Venus" so that we see it instead. Or, maybe it's a ship or being that actually "launched" from Venus and is heading right toward us.

Here's another theory I had right before drifting off to sleep last night... Don't laugh... Maybe it's the fabled Blue Kachina? I have actually never been one to speak of or even think about much of the Hopi motifs, but it popped into my head after clearing my thoughts for my nighttime, pre-sleep meditation.

I woke up this morning with a strong impression that it doesn't even necessarily matter what it is... All ancient scriptures around the world have said that there will be signs in the sky that would let us know when things are happening, and so it must mean something when we notice anomalies.

[mojo]

Hi Church,
It sounds like your still out there sky watching, thats neat...& nice to see you back online.

[Church]

Yessir I am.

By the way... I have isolated those strange beeps of yours... Let me go send you a PM right now.

[Calz]

Well that was anticlimactic.

The impact ISON had on Mars was dramatic (at least visually from Earth) but very shortlived.

Perhaps there was something there (Venus) and the time has passed.

*If* ISON survives it's close path around the Sun then it is projected to come close to Earth coming back ...


TWT ...

[Church]

Okay, so I have been studying my ass off, looking at any and every astronomy website I can find, and now I can safely say that this thing *is* in the place that Venus is supposed to be. The current "conjunction" (or whatever the correct word is) between Earth and Venus does explain its position in the sky at the moment. It's just dancing around and flickering in a manner that I've never seen a planet do before. So I will go ahead and call this object Venus. I still think something weird is going on, but I can't prove anything anomalous is happening, so I will just say that Venus is acting up.

That being said, I did find out that wherever I checked before to find out its apparent magnitude at the moment was wrong. Having checked on numerous charts since then, they are all corroborating that it is at a bright magnitude, even though it is only at a crescent phase. So its brightness checks out. I simply need to make sense out of the flickering and the scintillating. So I have been looking into the possibility of ISON's effects on Venus. Haven't found any evidence of such, but it turns out that Mars was completely enveloped in its coma, after having a magnetic interaction with it, so why couldn't Venus? All I can safely say is, the skies are filled with activity at the moment, and everyone should keep there necks craned upward, in my opinion.

Also, many people aren't aware of it, but for the record, there is a much brighter comet in the sky right now. It's being referred to as another comet Lovejoy, as it was discovered by the amateur astronomer that discovered the last "comet Lovejoy" from 2011. Anyway, it's right between Cancer and Leo, directly overhead in the middle of the night, early morning. I'm going to try to see it tonight. I woke up early to see ISON today but it was cloudy.

[Spiral]

Could the scintillating effect be caused by Venus being low in the sky ? Therefore you are looking through more atmosphere than something overhead, this also has a magnifying effect.

[Church]

That's the thing... it's not low at all! It's fairly high up right now! I think, I want to say, I read that it is like 45 degrees inclined from the Sun or something like that. So, if you think about it, that's high up. I usually don't see the bright stars (like Betelgeuse and Arcturus) start scintillating wildly like that until they are even lower in the sky! So, I find it to be very strange. If you want, you could plug in 27 degrees N into a program like Stellarium and see the sky as I see it, and I think you will agree that that is very high up for something, especially a planet, to be scintillating.

[Spiral]

Wow you are far south !

I'm at 43° n and its only just visible above a dip in the hills for a short while here, maybe 15° up max.

[Church]

Yep. I can also see the Southern Cross for most of the year. It's pretty cool, but at the same time, it also is weird because the North Star is not very high up in the sky, even though I'm in the northern hemisphere, lol. In fact, now that I think about it, Venus is about as high up in the sky right now as the North Star always is.

So yeah, Venus "shouldn't" be flickering the way it is. I say that in quotes because, I don't know, what do I know? I'm trying to learn, here, and I'm far from authoritative on the subject.

[Church]

Hey Spiral (or Malc or Barbara), can you change the title of this thread to "Venus is acting up" please? The current title is obsolete, lol.

[Spiral]

Hey Spiral (or Malc or Barbara), can you change the title of this thread to "Venus is acting up" please? The current title is obsolete, lol.

Done