Yellow object in the night sky? any ideas?
 

Saw it earlier this evening (too cold to go out to check again). Am in the UK, and it was south (maybe south-south-east maybe), and about 25-30 degrees from ground. Bright yellow. Any astronomers here that could tell me what that might be?

Re: Yellow object in the night sky? any ideas?
 

This current thread in the politics forum may suggest a cause.

Re: Yellow object in the night sky? any ideas?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Saw it earlier this evening (too cold to go out to check again). Am in the UK, and it was south (maybe south-south-east maybe), and about 25-30 degrees from ground. Bright yellow. Any astronomers here that could tell me what that might be?

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That's Mars. It's unusually close right now. You can't miss it. You can read about it here.

BTW, you can use a sky chart like this one if you ever need help identifying something in the night sky.

Re: Yellow object in the night sky? any ideas?
 

Tnx Brucez.

The second link will be very useful, my son (10) often wants to go out and look at the night sky/stars and I'm a n00b to it, so this may prove invaluable.

Re: Yellow object in the night sky? any ideas?
 

If you are interested in astronomy and want a constant gentle reminder of what is currently out there to be seen, you may be interested in this Sky screen saver which shows you the current position of sun, moon, planets, and stars from the latitude and longitude you enter in the settings. I've had it on my desktop for years now.

Same site also has some fun freeware if you are interested in historical positions of sky objects.