astronomers out there?

It's Venus

It's Venus.

nm

If memory serves me correctly (don't bet any money on this) one of the planets mentioned earlier, Venus I believe, was also known as "Lucifer the Light Bearer" because it proceeds or leads the sun early in the morning. I didn't know that Mercury performed that duty part of the year. I never figured out how "Lucifer" became another name for satan.

It's planet ZOLTRON, they just threw off an undesirable character who apparently ricocheted off a cop cars windshield. :-O

if you want your own star chart

Google "cartes du ciel" and download the free program. It's a very good star chart with more features than you're ever likely to use. I find it very handy.

The "morning star" - I should have thought of that.
Then again, come September or so it would be the Evening star.
First one seen and last to go away - for the day.

Stacy

> I never figured out how "Lucifer" became another name for satan.

I believe it was an interpretation/translation of Isaiah 14:12-15. For example:

New International Version

How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!

You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”

But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.

King James Version

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

James

Now how does any of that have to with my admiring the Morning Star?
Yes, I looked up the scripture to be sure before I said anything.

Wish I would have known more about the skies above 10 years ago when I was still living in the Appalachians of western NC. I gave away my telescope before moving there. Dumb A on me. I would have loved to gaze at the Orion nebula on a good clear night. It's the only nebula visible by the naked eye. My baby brother fortunately has the same passion and has captured a pic or two of it.

James

> Now how does any of that have to with my admiring the Morning Star?

It don't 😉

But it was intended as a response to Stacy's question, thus the "Stacy" subject line.

astronomers out there

Don't make me break out Milton

Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of angels, than that star the stars among,)
Fell with his flaming legions through the deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake

I preferred Bananarama to Frankie Avalon, at least visually.

DO NOT INSTALL THIS PROGRAM !!!!!

IT IS WREAKING HAVOC IMMEDIATELY EVEN AFTER UN-INSTALL!!!
IT'S ALL I CAN TO POST THIS MESSAGE WITHOUT SEVERAL MORE BROWSER WINDOWS OPENING UP.

I AM NOT A HAPPY CAMPER RIGHT NOW. 5 MINUTES AGO ALL WAS WELL.

It's Venus

BowTie is right. If you are a star watcher you need a free program called Stellarium. You download it at:

http://www.stellarium.org/

I went to around 6 AM like you said, and looked to the Eastern hemisphere and Venus was there, and the brightest in the sky. Great tool with many more features. It even has the Hebrew zodiac constellations - all 48.

Astronomers use Stellarium for comet and asteroid watching too, buy going to the Nasa website or European Space Agency site and downloading the orbital paths into this program. It is a fun and powerful program everyone can afford. Be careful - pretty soon you will want a Telescope, and they are never big enough.

Cheers,
John

My apologies

I've put it on 4 different computers in the last few years - most recently a couple months ago - and never ran into that kind of stuff. I guess I was lucky to have picked the right one.

It's Venus

Actually John, I've had Stellarium installed for quite some time. The user interface for me isn't much. Once it starts my mouse cursor disappears and am pretty much clueless to get around with it. I have to get task manager up to shut it down. Perhaps I'll check for a newer version. Don't know what mine is since I can't really navigate around the program.

I'd love to have a scope again. The one I gave away was pretty cheesy. Probably not much better than what Galileo made. And not much better than my 400mm zoom on my old camera (both which I still have). It was good enough to impress the neighborhood kids to look at the moon and maybe catch the rings of Saturn if the time of year be willing. My little brother has a nice rig and he sends me good pics now and then. He even built his own sun filter and a camera mount. Kind of funny since he's about mechanically inclined as a sack of hammers. About a month ago or so we had Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune in sight with the naked eye but I never managed to figure out where Neptune was so I missed that one.
He did catch the Venus transit across the sun a couple years ago and sent me pics of that. That was his first test with the sun filter he made. It was a pretty good pic being he shot the photo from his phone holding it to the view piece. Before he built the camera mount of course.
One day I email him about the Orion nebula and where to find it and dam, if it weren't but a couple minutes later he answers back with a pic he got of it!!! So much for me trying to tell him anything about this stuff.
He might smoke me on the gazing but I still have him smoked on the physics behind it all.

Stacy

I did a little research posting this morning. I at least figured out how I knew that little bit of trivia. It also seems that the infamous Albert Pike had a fascination with the "Light Bearer". His writings are part of the reason some believe that the Freemasons worship the devil. He was simply admiring the morning star.

Stacy

Dang Brother Carroll, I'm surprised you would say such being a former PM and all.
Maybe Pike took the idea of "riding the goat" to the literal extreme.
E

Stacy

Eric, So many take Pike's writings as representing all of Freemasonry when they were merely one man's view of things. He had a strange... errrrr... different view on things than most. I respect his right to say what he believes. His views don't always align with mine though.

Stellarium

I'm running Stellarium 0.10.5, which is probably well out of date, on XP and the menus auto-hide at the bottom and left sides of the screen. Hover your mouse (even if invisible) there and see if they don't come back.

It's Venus

You may find interesting stuff by Jonathan Gray on Youtube, since you obviously look at the stars, many don't anymore. Check this video out, it is a little old, but full of information about the constellations you never get anywhere.

Tell me what you think if you watch it...
John