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Show ! MYSTERY AIRPLAYS PFIDVEJOBE EE Local Astronomer Explains Cause for Some Alarming Alarm-ing Reports. ACCOUNTS FOR LIGHTS i " Evening Star Plays Decciv-I Decciv-I ing Pranks on Vision of Credulous. By ALFRED RORDAME, Member Astronomical Society of the Pacific. A paragraph frequently appears In various va-rious newspapers at the present time, giving an account of a mysterious aero-phme, aero-phme, carrying a big searchlight, that is seen at a high elevation in the southwest, apparently coming directly towards the spectator, and then finally descending to tho horizon in the west. What they r ea U y c o is the planet Venus, the evening star, which, on account ac-count of its great brilliancy, is discernible discern-ible even in the daytime. A few words epla hiinc; the apparent motions of this planet wdl show how persons ignorant or" the pri net riles of astronomy will mistake mis-take i he star for lights carried on air raft. Venus is only seen for a. short, time, either after Mmset in the evening or in the morning before sunrise. It is never ! visible at midnight. When first seen in ; the evening after its superior conjunction , with the sun, it appears very near the ; horizon about twenty minutes after sun- , set. Tt t.ontinues visible only for a very ; short time, and descends below the hori- j zon not far from t lie point where the sun 1 went down. Kvory succeeding; evening it , rises to a higher elevation and continues; a longer time above the horizon. It ap- ! pears to move gradually eastward from 1 the sun for four or five months, gradu- ! ally increasing in brilliancy until it ar- ; rives at the point of irs greatest elongation, elonga-tion, 47 degrees from the sun. which this year was attained on November 30. The planet now appears stationary, still gaining gain-ing In brilliancy, and will soon appear to retrograde, approaching every evening nearer the sun and continuing a shorter time above the horizon unlit December "0, when it will have sained Its greatest brilliancy, after which, in about three weeks, it appears lost "in the splendor of Ihe solar rays and is no longer seen In tiie evening sky until more than nine or ten months have elapsed. Appearance of Venus. About eight or ten days aftr it has disappeared in the evening, if we look at the eastern sky before jsunrlse we shall see a bright star very near the horizon, which wa s no t previous! y to be seei i in that quarter. This is the planet Venus, which has passed its inferior conjunction with the sun and has now moved to the westward of him to make its appearance as the morning star. It Is now periodically taken for an appearance ap-pearance of the Star of Bethlehem by people who have occasion to arise before the dawn, and as such Is heralded in the daily pres. Innumerable instances of the daylight appearance of the planet is mentioned in history. In 171 6 the people of London were greatly amazed at the sight of Venus in broad daylight. At Paris in 1797 the multitude welcoming Bonaparte from bis Italian campaign paid more attention at-tention to the planet in the heavens above than to him and his brilliant staff. At Chevbourer in 1!05 Venus shone through a halo, causing the people to believe they beheld a stationary meteor. Citizens Deceived. "In our own city on May 10, IftlO, a,bout noon, the sidewalks and street? of the business section were filled with thousands thou-sands of people who. eagerly gazing heavenward at the planet, declared they beheld TI alley's comet, a natural enough mistake on their part at that time, when we remember the brilliant spectacle presented pre-sented by the comet in the early morning morn-ing hours. In the spring of 1915 a conjunction of Venue and Jupiter took place In the early evening hours, and at that time the authorities au-thorities of the city of Bordeaux, in France, got ready their anti-aircraft guns to repel Zeppelins, as they mistook the two planets that appeared so close together to-gether for lights carried by aircraft. Finally a couple of weeks ago the city of Billings, JVIont., was thrown into a state of alarm at the appearance of the planet in the western sky after sunset, and a similar appearan'ee was presented to hundreds hun-dreds of people in Ogden yesterday when Venus shone intermittently through the clouds. |