On Monday night, the Moon (which will be just past full) will be very close to Mars in the sky. They’ll be separated by about a degree, or twice the Moon’s width. It should be very pretty, so go take a look! Around 9:00 p.m. (your local time) go out and face east, and they should be high enough to see unless you have a really bad horizon.
Mars is getting very bright these days as the Earth catches up to it in their racetrack paths around the Sun. We’ll be closest to the Red Planet on December 18th, when it will be about 88 million km (55 million miles) away. Right now it’s about 96 million km (60 million miles) away. Still, it’s shining brightly even now, and worth a look. After the Moon moves away in a couple of more days, go take another look to see just how brilliant it is in the dark sky.
When all is said and done, this is not one of Mars’ better apparitions, actually. It was much closer in 2003, for example, so don’t expect it to look huge and looming in the sky. Through a very good ’scope you’ll be able to see some surface details, but not much. Mars is small, and 100 million km is still a long, long way away. But don’t sweat it: in a couple of months, Saturn will also appear in the night sky shortly after sunset, and the ringed planet never disappoints.
November 25th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Darn it, won’t be getting my new ’scope until Xmas!
November 25th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Ah, man. Another round of beating back the “MARS WILL APPEAR AS LARGE AS A FULL MOON” stuff again.
Good times.
Sigh.
November 25th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Only 55 million miles from Earth? This would seem like an ideal time for the Martians to launch an invasion. Should we go to a code orange alert or something? I mean, obviously those Mars rover landings were faked, so we have no idea what’s actually up there.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Thanks again Dr. Phil,
I might want to show that to a girl and make her feel really special and kiss her…
In fact, I’m sure I will.
I just don’t know which girl???
Just making trouble,
rod
As for you girls, yes, I”m a dog. And I totally suck. Sorry. Not!
November 25th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
>the ringed planet never disappoints.
Unless you don’t have a telescope
November 25th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I checked out Mars in my ’scope the other night and it was pretty cool. I could definitely make out the “disc.” Hopefully the sky will be clear enough in the coming weeks to take another look when it’s closer (I live in the Bay Area, so that’s always a gamble).
Do I really have to wait two months for Saturn? Phooey.
November 26th, 2007 at 2:26 am
I have a really bad horizon
Oh well, I might go for a walk and see if I can improve on it.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Ah, man. Another round of beating back the “MARS WILL APPEAR AS LARGE AS A FULL MOON†stuff again.
You’ve got it all wrong… it’s the massive increase in tidal effects that’s going to cause huge problems. That’s what we should be worrying about.
Thanks for the tip, Phil – I’ll be stocking up on survival kit today, for sure.
You did say April 1, right?
November 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am
>”I just don’t know which girl???”
You can hire them by the hour at eros.com.
>”and the ringed planet never disappoints.”
I once showed Saturn to a friend. They were totally unimpressed. Showed Mars to his wife. She said, “Eh, I thought I’d be able to see the storms.”
That was 12 years ago. I have never shown anyone anything through a telescope again.
November 26th, 2007 at 10:22 am
OK, I understand that Mars will not appear as large as the full moon (bummer, I was hoping to get some good pics of Thuvia and Deeja Thoris), but the real question is, and always will be:
“Can you really stand a republican on it’s end tonight?”
November 26th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Could you please take a photo of it and post it tomorrow?
It’s a bit cloudy here tonight.
Thank you.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
> Only 55 million miles from Earth? This would seem like an ideal time for the Martians to launch an invasion.
That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.
He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.
“The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one,” he said.
Of course, if you think about it, Ogilvy was right…
November 26th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
What’s that near the Moon? Is it a plane? Is it a UFO? No — it’s … Supermars!
Just got a lucky intermission in the clouds and was able to catch a few good glimpses at Mars on my way home. It’s 22:20 now in Germany.
Compared to the blue-gray Moon, Mars really looks… peachy.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
For North American observers, the Moon and Mars get even closer on December 23, to within a fraction of a degree; they will be about at their closest around 01:45 UTC, (17:45 PST, 20:45 EST). At higher northern latitudes on the west coast, roughly 47 N and above or from Seattle north, the Moon will occult Mars!
November 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Hmmmm…. If the moon gets between us and Mars, would that qualify as a Martian eclipse?
November 26th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
it’s snowing here. no moon for me.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Hmmmm…. If the moon gets between us and Mars, would that qualify as a Martian eclipse?
Yes, well sort of.
When a celestial body passes in front of another celestial body, it is called “occultation”. When the moon occults (? not sure if it is a verb) the sun we call it an eclipse, but they’re really all eclipses of sorts.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Just now walked in from showing it to my son. I try to point out things but I’m not very skilled and he’s even less so, but things close to the moon are easy enough to find even for us more bumbling star hoppers. We even broke out a really crappy scope with one leg gone and braced it up, but really it wasn’t good enough to get more then a bigger dot and perhaps a hint of red (moon looked nice though – it’s very crisp here in Kansas tonight). Thanks for the heads up. I’m secretly hoping he’ll join my particular dark side of seeing little but the warm glow of the monitor, but an astronomer would certainly do and we got to spend some time.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Think I saw it. Down and to the right? South Florida is often cloudy at night, and the moon (when visible) is usually seen through a haze. I miss Tucson and the lower light pollution. I also miss my dad’s collection of binocs and telescopes…
On the upside, I live near the JREF. Have GOT to go there one of these days, maybe in January for TAM 5.5.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Oooh, it’s so pretty!
Thanks for the heads up about it.
(sometimes astronomers need to be reminded to look up)
November 27th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I got home from class around 10PM last night and I almost went to bed forgetting to check out Mars. I showed my wife. Sans telescope we could see it pretty well here in Dubuque, IA. She could see the red color really well. I’m red-green color blind so it was more difficult for me. It was a beautiful night.
I want a telescope for X-mas. Anybody have any recommendations for a a decent inexpensive starter telescope?