by iamlucky13 » Thu Feb 22, 2007 6:06 pm
The article says that Mira is currently a magnitude 2 in brightness. The brightness scale is set up so that smaller numbers are brighter. 2 is easily visible to the naked eye, but not enough to get noticed over the other stars. It's most likely you are seeing Venus, which has a magnitude of around -4 and is in a good position to see right now.
If you hover your mouse cursor over the image on that date, it will show the outline of the constellation constellation Cetus. Go back out tonight and see if you can spot the constellation. Mira is near the bottom.
The article says that Mira is currently a magnitude 2 in brightness. The brightness scale is set up so that smaller numbers are brighter. 2 is easily visible to the naked eye, but not enough to get noticed over the other stars. It's most likely you are seeing Venus, which has a magnitude of around -4 and is in a good position to see right now.
If you hover your mouse cursor over the image on that date, it will show the outline of the constellation constellation Cetus. Go back out tonight and see if you can spot the constellation. Mira is near the bottom.