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Best Night to See Mars


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Mars makes history in the night sky 8/26/03

Look for planet during closest approach in 59,619 years

Mars sparkles as a reddish-orange point of light over Poodle Rock at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Observers in mid-northern latitudes should see the planet as the brightest object in the night sky, rising in the southeast at about sunset.

WHERE TO LOOK

Mars rises in the southeast around sunset, your local time, shimmering like an orange star so bright it could momentarily be mistaken for an airliner on final approach. It outshines all other stars in the sky. Around 1 a.m. Mars is due south and high in the sky. It sets in the southwest at about sunrise.

No equipment is necessary to observe Mars closer than has any human in the past 59,619 years. But the best views are afforded through telescopes, which can reveal surface markings, the south polar ice cap and clouds. For this purpose, astronomers recommend at least a 70mm lens for so-called refractor telescopes, or 4.25 inches for the reflector type.

Happy viewing stargazers!

Jardinero

[This message was edited by jardinero on August 27, 2003 at 11:25.]

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okay, I know I'll pay for it in the morning, but I stayed up and shot about 100 raw frames of Mars tonight. Some look pretty good, so I'll wash them through the deconvoluter and try to post some tomorrow.

Didja see it? icon_smile.gif:)-->

(it'll look the same tomorrow night, too... icon_smile.gif:)--> )

The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

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I work 3rd shift so star gazing is one of the few benefits. A few weeks ago I watched Mars "rise" from behind the dakside of a crescent moon. It would have made a beautiful picture through a telescope. I wonder if any amature astronomers caught it.

wasn't born to follow-

false doctrines

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I haven't gone through processing all the images (it was 125MB of raw data), but here's one that looked promising:

Mars2003b.jpg

That dark smudge in the center contains Vallis Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system. You can see the south polar ice cap and the blue glow through the northern atmosphere.

Compare it to the pics Hubble got a few hours earlier...(and you'll see why we spent all the money on Hubble.)

The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

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From APOD: 8/27/03 picture of the day:

quote:
Explanation: Yesterday, at about 10 am Universal Time, Mars and Earth passed closer than in nearly 60,000 years. Mars, noticeably red, remains the brightest object in the eastern sky just after sunset. The best views of Mars, however, will continue to be from the robot spacecraft currently orbiting Mars: the Mars Global Surveyor and the Mars Odyssey. The current pass sparked the launching of four new spacecraft toward Mars, some of which will deploy landers early next year and likely return even more spectacular views of our planetary neighbor. Pictured above, Mars was photographed rising in the southeast behind Elephant Rock in the Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, USA.

icon_smile.gif:)-->," God

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Mars-watching is really for all of us.

(Just like the event this celebrates, the casting down of the devil out of heaven, this one's for us.)

Anyone can see it. Like a street-light in the sky, it sweeps across the night-time sky just about from dusk to sunrise, southeast to southwest as noted in the first post.

I think it's especially neat that APOD picked this picture which was made by a guy in Nevada. (Sin may dwell here but also some wonderful love-ly people, bright stars in the dark nite, live in Nevada as well.)

Astronomy question: How long will we be able to watch Mars like this?

Hopefully,

icon_smile.gif:)-->," God

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It will be this good until the end of September, but if you keep following it, you'll be able to see it until it gets lost in the glare of the sun. Even at greatest separation, Mars is still as bright as a 1st-magnitude star.

The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

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  • 2 weeks later...

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