What is that twinkling thing I see in the sky every night?

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Maybe it's already been discussed here but I don't know much about it, but since spring began this year I've been seeing the same twinkling thing in the sky in the same place. I work nights so I can clearly see it even if it's cloudy. It's not a star because you don't often just see one star at night in the same place, and it's slightly bigger than the usual stars I have seen. Despite not being a physics science geek it still keeps fascinating me but I can't find much information on it.

I was wondering if anyone here knew about it? It might only be seen from the UK or Europe, I don't know.

I can see Venus from my front door. I didn't realize that five planets were visible now. I'll take a look for Mercury tonight if it's clear. And if I stay up really late (or get up early) I can look for Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentia ... rn-mercury

I know the one you mean Joe90. It is very bright. There is nothing else in the sky that bright apart from the sun. Somehow I never really remember anything else that bright, and the other day it suddenly turned off, and about ten to twenty minutes later when I saw it, it had moved! It looks like an aircrft that has left its landing lights on and has them directed straight at me.

Give me:

a) the right ascension and declination of the object, and

b) your latitude, your longitude, your elevation, and

c) the exact time you sighted the object in coordinated universal time, and

I will tell you it's either Venus, a comet, or an exceptionally bright star.

Unless it's moving, in which case it's a U.F.O.

From here it is in the west so I am guessing that from the USA it will be east?

It is every night but this evening it has been cloudy so we can't see a thing.

If it’s the one I’ve seen up to a few weeks ago* that was WSW adjacent to the Pleiades around 9:30-10:15pm ish I believe that’s Venus.
Looks faintly orange-yellow?

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*It’s been cloudy here.

Orange-yellow? Venus.

Green-yellow? Saturn.

If it were a local thing only a few thousand feet up in the sky (like a Goodyear blimp with neon lights) folks in one town would see it in the western sky, and folks in neighboring town would see it in the eastern sky. Folks in North America wouldn't be able to see it at all.

But it were an object in interplanetary space, thus far enough away for folks on both sides of the Atlantic to see it, then we Americans would also see it in the western sky. But we would see at a different Greenwich time, but probably at roughly the same local time that you see it.

The stars at night move east to west. The same way that the sun moves in the day time. So if its already in the western sky before your bedtime then it probably drops below the horizon soon after you go to bed. So it seems to hangout near the sun (since you see it only shortly after sunset). That argues for it being Venus because that's what Venus does. Mercury and Venus are downhill from us in the solar system:they are both closer to the sun than we are. So when we see them its usually at around either sunrise or sunset not far in time or in apparent spatial distance from the sun.

i forgot to turn on my ship's cloaking mechanisms again. sorry.

Guess you are talking about Sirius. Because it's the brightest star in the sky it seems 'bigger' then other stars. Planets may be brighter but don't twinkle this beautiful way. You may see it in the evening in the west now.

I'm voting for Jupiter. It's been very bright the last few years, and once you've noticed it, Jupiter really doesn't look like anything else in the sky. Brighter even than Sirius, and I'd swear it looks wider than any other star or planet, like you can almost see a disc with the naked eye. I've seen it shining through mists and thin cloud.

If it is Jupiter, it's well worth a look through binoculars. The four largest moons will appear as tiny stars in an eerily straight line to either side of the disc, exactly as Galileo first saw them.

(I've never managed to spot Saturn, which is annoying. Pretty certain I've seen Mercury and Venus in the sky at the same time, just before sunrise.)

It's Venus. Jupiter doesn't rise until after 1 AM right now.

Planets rarely twinkle. Sirius is an eyecatcher if it comes to this. But it's hard to guess what she was talking about without additional information about time and direction.

9 out of 10 times it's venus on the horizon