Is Venus appearing a lot brighter in the last few months than normal? I see some really bright "star" when I drive west from Asheboro most evenings.

That was a UFO beaming back at ya

Yes, that is Venus. I do think it is in a good location to be nice and bright both distance from earth-wise which would help a bit but also at a phase that reflects a lot of light (it is not a crescent.)

Venus goes through phases like the moon (evidence of the heliocentric theory) and it seemed close to a quarter to me and would reflect more light to us on earth than when a smaller crescent when I looked with a few students about two weeks ago.

Personally I blame Venus for most of our problems. Mercury is in retrograde, the astroids that have passed sucked some atmosphere away, the moon cheese has spoiled, and Iamarino commissioned all the remaining SoCon schools to build a ray gun that has been pointed at our sideline for every game this year.

firemoose wrote:Personally I blame Venus for most of our problems. Mercury is in retrograde, the astroids that have passed sucked some atmosphere away, the moon cheese has spoiled, and Iamarino commissioned all the remaining SoCon schools to build a ray gun that has been pointed at our sideline for every game this year.

Which is basically what I said as well in so many words.

firemoose wrote:Personally I blame Venus for most of our problems. Mercury is in retrograde, the astroids that have passed sucked some atmosphere away, the moon cheese has spoiled, and Iamarino commissioned all the remaining SoCon schools to build a ray gun that has been pointed at our sideline for every game this year.