Which Planet/Star is it?

Question

I live in north India. About 24° latitude. I can see a very Bright star in sky. Its towards east and high up. Is it Venus , Jupiter, star or anything else?

Its not Sirius. I used Orion belt for that.

Date: 24 March , 2016

Time : 8 :00 p.m.

At 11: 00 pm. Its directly upwards. Angle b/w moon and sun ~60°.

I suggest you have a look at this question - it will tell you how to find out for any location: http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/703/very-bright-star-in-the-east-at-northern-hemisphere-what-is-it — Andy, Mar 24 '16 at 15:54

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '16 at 03:40

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The site in-the-sky.org has a wide variety of functions and options. In Planetarium mode, I chose a random city at about 24N and in the middle, which helps to get the correct UTC + 05:30 India Time Zone, and then just put in the time and date and turned on alt/az grid.

So it is likely to have been Jupiter, as you suspect. Below are two screen shots - 20:00 and 23:00 local time, with Jupiter climbing from 41 to about 73 degrees above the horizon.

answered Apr 25 '16 at 03:40

uhoh

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How did you picked up my old question? – Anubhav Goel Apr 25 '16 at 03:52
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For some reason it appeared in the list of questions after I logged out maybe an hour ago. Usually that means there was new activity and it got bumped up, but I don't see any here. Good question for meta.astronomy.stackexchange! :) – uhoh Apr 25 '16 at 04:07

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 24 '16 at 17:29

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Thank you all!

Its not Sirius, I found Sirius a bit far in south west using orion belt in west.

Its not Venus, just because of timing.

Its not flickering and is brightest.

Then, it ought to be Jupiter.

answered Mar 24 '16 at 17:29

Anubhav Goel

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Can someone please check my answer. – Anubhav Goel Mar 24 '16 at 17:34
Jupiter would be setting in the west between 8pm and 11pm, so I don't think that's it. My best guess would be Vega. As others have noted, using a planetarium (online or offline) might be helpful. – Mar 28 '16 at 03:54
I saw Jupiter recently, look at my account for a post on it. This may be helpful – Bobdabiulder Mar 29 '16 at 00:32
I think you are right! See answer below – uhoh Apr 25 '16 at 03:41
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@uhoh You mean above :-) – Anubhav Goel Apr 25 '16 at 03:53

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 24 '16 at 20:06

My guess is that it would be the star Altair. That is the brightest star in the region of the sky you indicate at your time and location. Altair is one of the brightest stars in the sky and highly visible.

If you want to try and confirm yourself, try checking out an interactive planetarium like this one. Put in your location, set to the correct time, and check out what the sky looks like.

Jack R. Woods · Answer 4 · 2016-03-25T00:01:34.610

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Try this link http://www.ucolick.org/~bolte/AY4_00/weblab/project/chart.html . It's a good one and it's free. Do you see a triangle of bright stars looking up? If so they are probably Altair, Vega and Arcturus. You need to use longitude also. I guessed 80 deg. East. Here are the apparent brightnesses in magnitudes of the 3 stars above east to west: Altair +0.76, Vega +0.026 and Arcturus -0.05. Vega is slightly north of the other two. Therefore, I think your star is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, Arcturus.

edited Mar 25 '16 at 00:01

answered Mar 24 '16 at 23:43

Jack R. Woods

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I goofed in my answer above, but I still say Arcturus. I used 2300 (11pm) Universal Time, but 11pm IST (India Standard Time) = 17:30 UT – Jack R. Woods Mar 25 '16 at 01:54

Which Planet/Star is it?

4 Answers4