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Comment by dmurray | Hacker News Reader

My rule of thumb is, when someone asks "what's that star?" it's Venus. If it's later in the night, it's Jupiter.

Or Mars, but what's nice is that you generally only have to look up what that "other planet" is once every few months or so, and you'll know it for a good long while. Right now it's Jupiter.

Venus is actually surprisingly far from the sun right now, although still clearly the evening star.

I whip out my phone, pull up Sky Guide, then point it at the star in question. Around here depending on the time of the year it's typically Jupiter, Mars, Venus, or Sirius.

Why would it be related to the time of night?

Venus’s orbit is between us and the Sun, so if it’s going to be visible at all, it won’t be at a time when your part of the Earth is facing totally away from the Sun. Venus would be visible a lot during the day if the Sun were less bright.

Only visible around sunset and sunrise, due to proximity to the sun.

If you see a really bright "star" near the sunset for example, it's almost certainly Venus.

If we’re indoors, it’s a paid actor.

That's less accurate advice than you might think.

There are more volunteer actors than professional. Odds are high that they're actually unpaid.

I’d think odds are the ones I’m seeing on TV or in a movie are paid. (Most of the actors are unpaid. Most of the sightings of actors are probably of paid actors.)

Touche!

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