Chuck, I didn't try really hard, but I tried Berlin, Germany with the web based star chart at: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Yoursky I think Germany is ahead of UTC by about one hour. So, I used 21:30 UTC. It shows a low gibbous moon. It also shows Jupiter just coming up. So, maybe they just waited for the moon to set rather than waiting for a moonless night. ________________________________ I find myself in need of aid from someone with a planetarium program that can reveal planet locations on the sky, going back to at least 1918. There is a bit of preamble necessary to frame the question, please bear with me. <snip> My question is, what planet could he be referring to? His escape is recorded as being on October 13, 1918, the planet reference would be the night of October 14th. He makes another reference that places the planet sighting before midnight, could have been as early as 10:30. He and Isaacs were at the time traversing the Black Forest, with mountainous horizons, so the "planet" could have been as high as 20 or even 30-degrees before it "rose", when reading the description of the bridge and stream in a canyon-bottom, but this is not certain. Checking my planisphere, there is a possibility that Willis confused Sirius with a planet, but I would think that he would know the Dog Star; too, it is a bit below the ecliptic and seems like it may have been too low in altitude at the time. Possible candidates are Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars near opposition. If none were in the area then it would have to have been Sirius. I'm also curious as to the phase of the moon at that time. Anybody care to set the "WayBack" machine for October 14, 1918, and see what shakes out? Thanks in advance, please post your results! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com