Very bright star in the east at northern hemisphere. What is it?

As other people have pointed out, it is hard to work out which star it is, without knowing your general location. However, after checking on Stellarium, there seem to be a couple of likely suspects:

• Sirius - the brightest star in the sky. I've seen it myself - and on a good, dark night, it can really stand out.


• Jupiter - the king of the planets is also rising at about the same time. It is brighter than any star in the sky, by a wide margin (though fainter than Venus), and it can really stand out.

Other than that, there aren't really that many objects rising in the East at the time you specify that could really stand out.

There are a couple of useful ways to tell the two apart:

• Sirius is a bright white object - perhaps with a subtle bluish tinge to it, whereas Jupiter has a slight yellow tint to it.


• Jupiter is currently rising in the North-East, and can get very high in the sky at the moment from the northern hemisphere, whereas Sirius rises in the South-East, and doesn't get that high (though that does depend on location).


• Sirius tends to twinkle, and 'flicker', as its light is disturbed by air currents, whereas Jupiter remains very steady - perhaps not twinkling at all.

As mentioned earlier, the best method is usually to use software like Stellarium, which will tell you exactly where everything is, and hopefully give you a definitive answer to which object it is.