Starwatch night sky events with Bob Mizon MBE of the Wessex Astronomical Society.

Ancient peoples wondered why an extraordinarily bright star appeared sometimes in the west, following the Sun down, and sometimes in the east before sunrise.
Many thought that these were two different objects and called them the Evening Star and the Morning Star.
Much later was it realised that this brilliant ‘star’ is in fact the planet Venus, and what we are seeing is a lot of sunlight reflected from its cloudy atmosphere, a toxic combination of acids and carbon dioxide.
A goddess of love to the Romans because of its pure white light, it is now known to be a hellish planet whose enormous surface temperature of about 500 degrees has destroyed spaceprobes and ruled out visits by astronauts. Watch for it in the last week of January and in early February low in the west after sunset.
No, it’s not a UFO. Clear skies!