Any astronomers out there can ID a star please?

[mrs_overall]

Last night I was stargazing and noticed one very bright star with an unusual yellow colour. If you look at the 3 stars in a line that are part of Orion and imagine that they are at 4 o'clock, this star was positioned at roughly 11 o'clock, looking east/northeast. Sorry this is a bit vague. Any ideas please?

[squarebear]

Was it twinkling? If not it may have been Venus. I'll have a look tonight.

[Teddio]

Its probably Mars (in Gemini) which will get steadily brighter up to Christmas.

[Gromit]

Do you mean Bettleguese, which is the shoulder of Orion? Mars would appear red not yellow. If you were observing in the late evening, it could be Venus which is also called the Evening Star.

If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, you can put in your postcode and then flip to Sky View which shows the constellations visible over your house at that time.

http://earth.google.com/

[mrs_overall]

I don't think it was twinkling - it was more like a steady light. I saw it about 11pm. Mr O thinks it may have been Mars but he knows less about the subject than I do!
Thanks for your answers.

[dundurn]

I agree with Mars - it's in the right direction, although this all rather depends on how big mrs_overall's clock face is! Going diagonally up and to the left from the belt you do cross Betelgeux which is certainly bright and noticeably yellow/ orange. Aldebaran is the other non-white candidate but it's up and to the right in Taurus.
Can't be categorical squarebear but I suspect it couldn't be Venus. Venus is inside our orbit and therefore is always more or less Sun-wards in the sky, so West to South West in the evening and East to South East in the morning?

[gen2]

At the moment, Venus rises just before the sun so it wouldn't be seen until the morning so that definitely counts that out.

I have been watching Mars (when cloud permits) and it is the brightest object in the region of sky described by mrs_overall just to the right of the pair of stars Castor and Pollux (Gemini).

[mibn2cweus]

mars finder map
Orion's belt is off the map to the right

planet finder
Select London from the ? drop down menu

[mibn2cweus]

Note: The view shown in Planet Finder is inverted left to right.
North is actually to your left when facing East.

After changing a time or date field press your Enter key to update view.

[Bazile]

k

[mrs_overall]

Having looked at various links and sky maps, I've decided it IS Mars.
Many, many thanks for your answers.