Moon, Planet, Star, UFO?

Wednesday night we were driving home from gymnastics and noticed a bright light in the western sky. We thought it was probably a plane but as we got closer to home it didn't move. It was bright and we thought it was possibly a planet.

Last night, while I was reading a book to the picklets, Miss Crisp (my bestest friend from high school) called and told me there was a strange star in the sky. I went outside and looked. Sure enough, the same star was in the sky, though it wasn't in the western sky, it was more eastern.

I took some pictures of it. You will notice that some are faint while some are brighter. It kept changing in brigtness. (I hope you can see them)

Then some video.

The closer I zoomed it seemed it was a star burst. Chip told me it was a Nova Burst. We got the telescope out and when we focused in on it certainly looked like a moon, a bluish moon. At times it seemed something was moving in front of it because parts of it would black out through the telescope and camera, not to the naked eye. You can see that at the end of the above video.

Through some research I think we have found it to be Sirius. Where the "star" was located in the sky definitely coincided with what we are looking at in this picture.According to what we have read, Sirius is known as the dog star. It is located in the constellation Canis Major. It is located 8.6 light years from earth. According to mythology, Egyptians called it the "Dog Star" after their god Osiris. Osiris is located in the sky as Orion. How cool!

As we were freezing our tails off looking at the bluish star through the telescope last night Chip said, "I get it!" Just what did he get? "I know why J.K. Rowling named Sirius Black what she named him. He transforms into a dog. She IS brilliant!"