Mars is visible in the east in the early morning.<br /><br />If you were looking in the evening, it could not have been mars.<br /><br />When I thought it was in th east, I suspecyed it was Rigel, since this is what I saw the morning of the elcipse.<br /><br />Notice there is also another report in the the flashing star like object thread.<br /><br />When you've been answering these questions as long as we have, you know this is a common question from folks who study the sky for the first time.<br /><br />When the atmosphere is really roiling, it's just a matter if figuring out the direction, then going down the list of the top 10 brightest stars to see which one is in that direction.<br /><br />The top 10 brightest stars (in the northern Hemisphere are:<br /><br />Star....Magnitude.. constellation <br /><br /><b>Sirius...... -1.5....Canis Major</b><br /><font color="yellow">Arcturus.. -0.0....Bootes</font><br />Vega....... +0.0....Lyra<br />Capella.... +0.1...Auriga<br /><b>Rigel....... +0.1...Orion</b><br /><b>Procyon....+0.4...Canis Minor<br /><font color="orange">Betelgeuse..+0.5...Orion </font></b><br />Altair....+0.8...Aquila<br /><b><font color="orange">Aldebaran.. +0.9....Taurus </font></b><br />Antares ... +1.0....Scorpio <br /><br />The reddish stars are in orange, I put Arcturus as yellow, Capella is also a bit on the yellow side.<br /><br />The stars in Bold are all in that same area of the sky, rising in the east during the early morning hours.<br />Also, this year Mars (red) is in the middle of Taurus at magnitude +0.3<br />so there are even more bright objects out there.<br />Mars should twinkle less than the stars, sice it's light is spread over<br />about 8 asc seconds, rather than a point.<br /><br />Edited once we realized it was an evening object.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>