Bright Objects in the Sky

Cure your text-neck with some healthy, upwards sky watching this Friday night, April 17, 2015.

At sunset, and even a little before, Venus and Jupiter will the brightest, and second brightest objects in the sky respectively. 

Then at 8:26pm and ~50secs a fantastically bright object will light up just east of Jupiter, nearly overhead. It’s called an Iridium Flare and this one will be about as bright as they get (hella-bright mag -8.5). For comparison Venus is mag -4 and the Full Moon is mag -11. The Sun is mag -27. 

Here’s a cheat sheet:

Although the satellite takes nearly 14 minutes to go ‘horizon to horizon’, it’s visible for only about the middle 4 minutes of that (the sky’s sweet spot) with the 'flare’ only lasting a few seconds. 

So go ahead, bet someone you can make a shooting star appear. Know the exact time with this website.

Thumbnail photo: Brocken Inaglory CC BY-SA 3.0