ROCHE-DES-ARNAUDS (LA) (05) 26.01.2015

At 18:55 on 26 January 2015, a witness at La Roche-des-Arnauds (05) saw an orange ball he judged much brighter than Venus and twice as large. When he tried to photograph it 10 minutes later, it was gone. His clear sketch on questionnaire page 9 showed a celestial body below the Moon that he called Venus, with another larger, brighter red point farther along the same line. GEIPAN's sky chart instead identified the first as Mars, at magnitude 1.36, described as slightly brighter than stars in Ursa Major. Lower on the same line was Venus. The source gives Venus's magnitude as 3.34 while calling it about 4 times brighter, an internally inconsistent numerical explanation that is not corrected here. GEIPAN explains that Venus near setting appeared redder, as celestial bodies can near the horizon, and would be invisible 15 minutes later after setting. It classified the well-documented case A: confirmed observation of Venus setting.