I’ve noticed this a few times now over the past few days. There appears to be some sort of planet/star which is incredibly bright in the skies over the UK. The light appears at a five o’clock position from the moon, about 3 metres away from it, if you measured the amount of sky (it may move, but this has been it’s approximate position at around 10pm).
Some people have mentioned it as being Saturn, others as Venus and some more as the ISS (although I know it isn’t the ISS).
What exactly is it?
Try watching Patrick Moore on The Sky at Night I think I know what you’re talking about though I’ve no idea what it is. I always assume if its bright, stationary and visible around dusk its either Mercury or Venus 
It’s Venus, which is by some way the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. If you look at the sky at dawn or dusk and can only see one “star”, it’s almost always Venus. Mercury, IIRC, is practically impossible to see with the naked eye (too close to the sun).
Last night, at 10pm, Venus had already set. Mars was in about the position that you describe, but it’s only magnitude one brightness. Antares (the “anti-Mars”) would have been to the left of the moon, and about the same brightness.
Undoubtably, what you were seeing was Venus, and you possibly got some of the details wrong. For instance, 3 metres. How are you measuring that?
Mercury is very easy to see, although it is harder for folks who live in higher latitudes. You have to know when to look. I’ve seen it here in North Carolina from the brightly lit parking lot of a large shopping center, standing under a light.
But, for instance, from London, on March 28, 2004, at 7:10pm, Mercury will be magnitude zero, and ten degrees up in the sky, almost due West. The sun will have set forty minutes previous. Or on any of the few days before or after should be easy too.
Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all up there in the evening sky, together with the Moon, and all the glorious Winter stars;
Sirius, Procyon, Betelguese, Rigel, Castor, Pollux, Capella, Alnitak, Aldebaran;
if it would only leave off snowing and hailing by turns I could check them out…
You didn’t mention what direction. At this point in the planets’ orbits, Venus is visible in the West right after sunset, and Jupiter is visible in the East around 8 PM. Saturn appears higher up in the sky in the evening, in the constellation Gemini.
I assume you’re seeing a planet, but one way to tell for sure is to notice whether or not it twinkles. Stars generally do, especially near the horizon, but planets don’t. The reason has to do with atmospheric turbulence distorting incoming light, which has more effect on a star’s disk than that of a planet which has a much larger apparent diameter.
Planets often twinkle, near the horizon, though.
I’ll be surprised if I get an answer to this, but you never know…
I have been watching the heavens all my life and so have a pretty good idea of what’s out there, etc. But one time while traveling through Texas I saw the strangest thing. All the stars seemed to be “jumping” back and forth, as in a few feet, in the heavens. I have never lived in the warmer, dry areas of our land and have assumed that it had something to do with warm and dry atmospheric conditions.
Anyone ever seen this?
I went out to the pub with my friends at 9.30, I and the rest of my friends noticed it while walking to the pub, so I know the time is approximately right. I “measured” three metres as if the sky was a plane, the star was at a five o’clock position three metres away from the moon on the plane, if you see what I mean.
When I went out it was pitch black, dusk around here (Edinburgh) is about 6pm. The star was also nowhere near the horizon, it was pretty high up in the sky.
The point is that you can’t measure ‘metres’ on the sky… if you have a metre-long stick, you can hold it up against the sky and say ‘those two stars are a metre apart’, but someone with longer arms or standing further behind you would see the metre-stick covering a different amount of sky.
Astronomers measure the sky in angle units, like degrees. From the horizon to directly overhead is 90 degrees. A way to estimate how many degrees apart things are is to use your hand at arm’s length. A spread-out hand, from pinky-tip to thumb-tip, is about 20 degrees. (If you have shorter arms you probably also have smaller hands, so it all evens out.)
On the 27th, at 9:30pm, Venus was still above the horizon. It’s very bright so that was probably what you saw. It set fifteen minutes later.
Since Venus was about 43 degrees from the moon, that would mean that you are imagining the sky to be about four meters away from you. Some people imagine that it is a bit farther, that’s all.
That would have been it.
Ahh, so it was Venus.
Thanks.