Anybody know what this was?

[polaris93]

Last night around midnight, I noticed a bright object at about 10 o'clock (as a direction relative to due south, which would have been at 12 o'clock) in the eastern sky, and just a tad south of due east from me. It was so bright I thought at first it was an aircraft of some sort -- we get lots of them going overhead here all the time, so that

Comments

[mr_spock]

I read on dr_nebula 's blog a while back that we'd soon be able to see the light from the super-nova of Betelgeuse. Is that a possibility?

[polaris93]

I saw that post, too. But this couldn't have been Betelgeuse. The declination of Betelgeuse is 7°24' North, way too far south for this, which was almost due east of me (my latitude is 47° 42' North). Betelgeuse's longitude is too far east of whatever the object was, as well; it's in the constellation of Orion, equivalent to the celestial longitude of the astrological sign/astronomical month of Cancer, whereas the object itself was no further east than the sign Pisces/constellation Aquarius. So far, I don't have a clue as to what it was.