What were these three objects?

Last night I was searching for the Comet, which I'm still not sure if i spotted. I hear it is dim, so I doubt any of the three objects I will describe will be it.

Sometime last night, fairly close to midnight here in the mountains of North Carolina, I was looking near the constellation of Orion, I believe to the South-East or so. I saw a stunningly bright Blue star. I thought it was the comet, because of it's blue color, but as I said before, I hear it is still fairly dim to the naked eye. But this object was just as bright with the naked eye as it was with binoculars.

The second object was out at the same time, but more east than the other, on the other side of Orion. It was too, extremely bright and a yellow/orange color... am I safe to assume this was Venus? Or was it too early for it to have been Venus? If it wasn't Venus, then what was it?

The Third object was this morning around 6 am to the East. This one was too exceptionally bright, and a white color. Now I know Venus is called the Morning Star, so if this was Venus, then that means the previous light I saw was not Venus.

I haven't seen these three objects as bright as they are now, but then again I never noticed them there in the first place because they weren't all that bright before. Can anyone help me out, or at least help identify even one of them?

The Blue Star was almost assurderly Sirius, it would have been below and slightly to the left of Orion closer to the horizon than Orion. The second orange was Mars, it was higher in the sky by just a little than Orion and to the left of Orion as well.

The 6AM light was Venus, it is very bright right now.

You were seeing two of the brightest objects in our night sky and Mars can be pretty bright at times as well.

Enjoy the view.

Ok, then my suspicions that one was Mars and the other Venus was right... but are you sure it was Sirius? This star wasn't to the left of Orion, it was to the right of it, and then in the morning after Orion had passed overhead into the West, then it was on the left. It was also almost level with Orion, if not slightly higher.

reply to post by DarkHelmet


Maybe the stars you were looking at were part of Orion itself? If it was a very dark night, then Rigel and Betelgeuse may have appeared to look quite striking. Those two stars are among the brightest in the sky, each with a magnitude less than 1 (for comparision, the brightest star, Sirius, has an apparent magnitude of about -1.5). Maybe these were the first two stars you mentioned.

Here is a link to a page that has a lot of information about Orion. On this page, you are able to click on certain stars to get more info. You can see Betelgeuse is above and to the left of Orion's belt (Orion's "shoulder"), and Rigel is below and to the left of the belt (Orion's "knee").

Link:
"Clickable" Orion

Me being the Astronomy nerd, I know for a fact it wasn't a star in Orion. The thing that puzzles me particularly about that star is that it was a bright blue, which is why I mistook it for the comet. It was'nt a whitish-blue, it was a pure blue, and it didn't really shine. It was atually a fairly small point, but was just amazingly bright. And when I looked at it through binoculars, itdidn't make it any clearer, just a little more blue. If it isn't cloudy tonight, and it's in the same location, I'll take a picture and show you.

The other two I had suspicions about, which turned out correct, this one however has me puzzled

I am waiting to see this. Nothing I love more than a mystery object in the sky.

Hope there are no clouds.

And good hunting.

Originally posted by DarkHelmet
Ok, then my suspicions that one was Mars and the other Venus was right... but are you sure it was Sirius? This star wasn't to the left of Orion, it was to the right of it, and then in the morning after Orion had passed overhead into the West, then it was on the left. It was also almost level with Orion, if not slightly higher.

Hmmm, I was using Stellarium, a free astronomy program to look at the sky from you location. No star or planet that I see would be on the right at midnight and then on the left towards morning, they would have to be almost two different objects.

Well I can spot Mars again... yet I cannot locate the Blue light again. perhaps it's not as bright tonight or something? Could there have been some atmospheric conditions that could have made an ordinary star become extraordinarily bright?

There is some light cloud cover here, and maybe that is dissapating the glow of the star I'm talking about. I shall see again tomorrow night if I can spot the object or not.

And also, if I'm facing the east, the star would be on the right of Orion, but after it passed over and I'm now looking to the West, shouldn't it be like a mirror image and the star be on the left?

I didn't get home tonight from a Darts tournament until 12:45, whereas I made my previous observations closer to 11:00 or so last night, I'm assuming that almost 2 hour difference could also be a reason I'm not seeing my object tonight?

reply to post by DarkHelmet


The only other star it could be would be Rigel, but you said it was definelty not one of the stars in Orion. Download Stellarium at stellarium.org, great freeware program.

Whether it was left or right of Orion is probably a matter of perspective, but it most likely was Sirius. When I went looking for the comet over the weekend Sirius was a brilliant blue that could not be missed.

The more I'm beginning to think, I'm starting to believe it maybe was Sirius. I'm not sure how in the world I could have possibly not realized it, or even realized it the second I spotted it as I've seen Sirius many many times before.

whoa this is crazy... i believe you really saw something, because i was also in North Carolina this past weekend. It says you posted the thread on saturday, the 17th. and stated as seeing the things "last night"...which would be friday, and the SAME night i saw stuff in the sky. see i was outside and something told me to look up, so i did. this was around 3:45-4 AM..as i looked up, there was a bight blue star..i thought nothing of it as i have seen that star many of times before. but then to my left, out of the corner of my eye i noticed something. it was about 50-70 feet in the air tops..and it was juts gliding across the sky. it was of boomerange/V shape and CLEAR!... that sounds weird. but it had NO sound, and it just continued at the same speed to fly..which wasnt very fast. i ended up losing it once it got around town where the sky is lit up more. but i saw at least 6 distinctive lights on the craft. you could make out the outline of the craft, but you could see thru it. it looked almost like pure energy in the form of a boomerang, but i just think it was cloaked. my friend said he lives near a few military bases in NC, and that they test all kinds of crazy never before seen things relating to weather and flight. so whether this was man-made, or of ET origin...i am not to say. but i find it very, very interesting that you say you were on the mountain region of NC and saw some weird things...and i was near the beaches of NC and saw some weird things...very interesting if you ask me

reply to post by DarkHelmet


Sirius can look so bright at times that you think "that can't possibly be a star" If memory serves me right Mars brightened up for while about a year and a half ago or so. just the location of the Earth and Mars to the sun and suddenly it gets much brighter than usual for a period of time.

Ok... well we had a perfectly clear night tonight, and a semi-clear night last nght. And I now doubt again that it was Sirius, as in the location I had seen this Bright Blue Star, there is nothing but ordinary, average stars. I no longer see the brilliant blue I saw before. As I said before, I would have known if it was Sirius, as I've seen it many times.

I still see Mars, which is in the same location it's been, so I know where I need to look to find my star, but it's not there.

I have no idea what the hell it was, and I'm not saying it was anything extraordinary, though now I am curious to find what it really was. I'll be watching that spot over the next week or so, and hopefully I will be able to spot it again. I tried to take a picture of the location of where the star was, but I dunno how to configure my digital camera to where it'll actually pick up the starlight... all I've gotten was black pictures, even ones I tried on the moon barely show anything.

I downloaded that free program on the stars and stuff, and I'll look through that, maybe that will answer my question.

And I never saw any UFO type thing, but I'm glad someone else saw the Blue Star so I don't feel so stupid

reply to post by DarkHelmet



Hmm, not really sure what it could have been. How far off the horizon in "hands" ie. hold your hand sidways to the horizon and count how many up in the sky.

Think it is going to be unsolved. How long were you looking on the original night?

Well... being in the mountain I can't get a good estimate with the hands, otherwise I would have already provided that information. I could maybe get a semi-accurate guess if I were on the ground, but I'm half-way up the mountain.

I was looking for a good half hour or so. I did see the light again this morning. I didn't last night, but this morning at 6 I could see it to the left of Orion, as I could the one morning, so I know I'm not seeing things. Tomorrow morning I will check and see if I can kinda measure where it's located... whether it be in relation to the horizon or Orion. But right off the top of my head, at 6 AM it was to the bottom left of Orion, a good distance away from it, though not too far.

I saw the star again this morning at 6 AM. It was almost level, but just below the belt on Orion, and to the left. It was about 2 hand widths away from it.

Ok, well using that space program, I've confirmed that the thing I'm seeing in the morning is Sirius. I'm still not so sure if it's what I saw the other night though around Midnight, because while Sirius is in the general area of the Blue Star I saw, it's much too low. But then maybe me being on a mountain kinda distorted my viewing plane of things. So I'll just assume it was Sirius after all, though I can't believe I didn't notice it before.