How can you tell the difference between a star and a planet when observing the night sky?
Planets will show up in different spots in the sky each night (relative to the stars), whereas all stars are more or less fixed in reference to each other. Planets will always show up in the Southern sky (for the Northern Hemisphere), and will follow the same general path as the Moon and Sun. It seems like I heard once that planets don’t twinkle, but that could be totally off. They way I recognize a planet is by knowing the general constellations, you can spot a new ‘spot’ prettily easily then.
Stars twinkle when you look at them. Planets do not. Planets appear to be larger than stars, but they are not. They are just closer to us. With a good telescope you can see the moons of some planets as they move about the planet. You cannot see the planets around stars because they are so far away, and your vision is obscured by the very bright light of the particular star you are observing.
