Photographs of a bright dot in Saint-Mandé turn out to be Venus

Summary

One January 1979 morning a witness in Saint-Mandé noticed a slowly moving bright dot in the sky and photographed it several times between 6:15 and 8:30 a.m. Its ascending east-to-west path intrigued him. Analysis concluded the object was Venus, whose magnitude of −4.41 made it exceptionally bright at the time, explaining the confusion.