i saw what seemed like an extra
bright star last Sunday

someone said when it's illuminated,
it's a planet (what refecting the sun?)

i don't know much about this stuff
but it's fun to look at. it was due west,
i'm in NJ next to manhattan, and it was
low in the sky, near the cresent moon

Currently both Mars and Venus are in the early evening Western Sky as viewed from North America. The brighter of the two is Venus and most likely is what you saw last week.

Yes, planets shine by sunlight reflected from their surfaces. Stars are much farther from us and are burning and giving off their own pin points of light. Mercury and venus are both closer to the sun than our earth.People often refer to Venus as the morning star because it is usually the last visible "star" at daybreak.

Mars and Venus -- our next-door neighbors -- are each brighter than any star in the sky, even though they otherwise appear as point sources to the naked eye. Hence they are often mistaken (and wished upon?) as stars. They are often the first or last to emerge or linger in the twilight, and are sometimes called "morning star" or "evening star." But I really don't know how often each plays this role.

I'm also not sure how bright Mars & Venus are relative to stars when they are only in their dim phases, visible as crescents.

And Mars was noticeably brighter in recent months due to its unusual proximity, so that's a changing factor for the planets as well.

Venus has a high albedo (reflectivity) due to its thick, cloudy atmosphere which -- along with being closer to both sun and Earth than Mars is -- certainly helps it outshine everything in the sky but the sun, moon, and aircraft. Are there exceptions?

The other planets seem to require binoculars or a telescope to see, or at least to distinguish from the surrounding star field unless you're watching them "wander" among the stars as the ancients did.

But I'd defer to someone with hands-on / eyes-on knowledge of the subject -- I'm only a casual observer of the sky.

[This message was edited by Professor on 03-01-04 at 04:19 PM.]