What is the bright star in southeast in am in Maine?

Answer 1

The question was posted on February 7, 2011. That's important to mention, because

that bright thing won't be there for too much longer.

You're looking at the planet Venus ... the third brightest object in the sky, outshined

by only the sun and the moon.

If you can watch it every morning at sunrise, then over a period of several days or weeks,

you'll see it seem to stay there and stay there and stay there while the stars slither past

it and get lost behind the sun. In the process, the waning crescent moon will slip by,

on one side of Venus on the morning of 2/28 and on the other side on 3/1, and then

the moon will be gone behind the sun. But Venus will seem to stay so motionless

that it'll still be in practically the same spot when the moon comes around again,

on 3/31.

Venus will stay put until almost the end of April, and then suddenly, it'll start to

fall daily toward the sun, and eventually disappear behind it. Then, it'll slip behind

the sun, and emerge to show up in the evening, easy to see at sunset by late in

the Summer.

If you can't stick around to see all of that, here are a couple of tid-bits to go along

with Venus right now:

-- Pluto is right next to Venus in the sky, but you can't see Pluto without a serious

telescope. That's why it wasn't discovered until 1930.

-- While you're gazing at Venus in the southeast, swing over to the southwest

for a moment. The bright thing up in that direction is the planet Saturn. If you

have a set of binoculars, you'll be able to see what looks like love-handles on

Saturn ... definite bulges on each side. With a serious telescope, you'd be able

to see that the bulges are the famous rings of Saturn.