Tonight as we drove home, just after sunset, we noticed a single, bright star in the west. The sky was still quite bright and blue and no other stars were visible anywhere in the sky. As we neared home the sky was darker, yet this was still the only visible star.
The star we spotted was Arcturus, the brightest star in the northern sky. It is so bright that it is the only star, apart from our Sun, that sometimes be seen in full daylight. Arcturus is older than our Sun and is at the stage of its life-cycle known as red giant - hence it has enlarged to have about 15,000 times the volume of the Sun.
Spring is often the best time to spot interesting stars and I’ll be watching out for more over the next few weeks.