FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Venus Surprising

[Stan Gorodenski <stan_gorodenski@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sunday night I was at around the 8,000 ft. elevation in New Mexico. I 
was in my van doing some reading to wait for the skies to get dark after 
the sun set. After reading for awhile I turned the lights off to see the 
stars. I noticed across the road there appeared to be a light coming 
from a trailer (which I thought was vacant) because of  light reflection 
in the trees. However, as the night wore on and it got darker the 
contrast between the reflected light and the night sky did not increase. 
About a half hour later I then noticed what looked like someone  making 
their way down the road in the distance because the trees were lit up in 
a horizontal direction. Since I was in a remote area I carefully opened 
the door of my van and quietly walked to see where the the light was 
coming from. I was shocked to see it was Venus. Venus was ready to set 
and must have been blocked by trees early on. The flickering that made 
it appear as though someone was walking with a flashlight must have been 
caused by Venus passing behind branches as it was setting. Also, my 
guess is Venus must have been reflecting off something, maybe the vacant 
travel trailer, that caused the trees to be lit up giving the appearance 
that someone was occupying it.
Stan
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