Wandering Star

The word “planet” comes from the Greek word for “wanderer” and indicated that the “star” in question wasn’t fixed, but instead moved relative to the other stars.

In our western, sunset sky we often see bright planets. Search this site for “conjunction” or “Venus” and you’ll find plenty of pictures. So I wasn’t surprised to go out the front door the other day and see something bright just above the horizon.

See it? Just to the right of the batch of palm trees, between the mountain (Castle Peak) and the lowest cable? Here’s a close up.

Not bright enough to be Venus. And wait… Venus is in the morning sky, not the evening sky. Jupiter might be that bright in the sunset sky, but it rises around midnight these days.

So what is it?

Well, around here, the way to check for the next most likely object is to wait a minute. Is it “wandering” toward the horizon as the planet rotates, or is it “wandering” in the wrong direction and a bit faster than anything ever seen by the Greeks?

Right. It’s moving too slow to be the ISS (although the direction fits) but shortly after this picture was taken it got close enough overhead to see the other green and red navigation lights.

The new LED navigation and landing lights are really bright. When I first saw him he was probably out to the west of the 23 Freeway, near the edge of this image or even somewhere off to the left, just climbing out of CMA.

Wandering, yes. A star, no.