IF you were one of the many thousands of people who attended Kendal Mountain Festival last weekend - or if you were just out and about elsewhere, taking advantage of the crisp weekend weather - you probably noticed a strikingly-bright "star" shining just above the horizon to the south-west.

Some of you will already know what it was, but many readers might be surprised to learn that it wasn't a star - it was a planet. You were seeing the planet Venus, which is currently wearing its "Evening Star" hat and will continue to do so until the end of the year.

Venus is roughly the same size as our own planet Earth, and it shines so brightly in our sky because it has a very thick atmosphere of poisonous carbon dioxide gas which reflects the Sun's light like a mirror.

At the moment it is very low in the sky, and we're seeing it shining above the rooftops and trees, but it can appear higher and even brighter than it is now.

Many people mistake Venus for an airplane, or even the International Space Station, but there's one very simple way to avoid that mistake - airplanes and the space station move across the sky as you look at them, but Venus hangs in the same place in the sky as you look at it, slowly dropping towards the horizon as time passes.

Having found Venus, look to the south - to its left - and you'll see another planet shining in the sky, to Venus' upper left.

This is Jupiter, and if you look even more closely you'll see a third planet, Saturn, shining a short distance to Jupiter's lower right.