Mars August 26th in the NE sky in NJ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dvo3675

Guest
I was in Long Beach Island, NJ on the night of Friday August 26th, 2005. It was approximately 11:30pm. As I looked out into the Atlantic Ocean toward the north east, I saw what at first I thought to be a red sail of a sail boat. This sail appeared to be illuminated by a spot light or flood light of sorts. I didn't think anything of it being that it was some what cloudy and seemed fairly feasible to have a large sailboat with strong lights about a mile or two into the water. The object continued to move across the horizon for the next ten minutes or so, until I realized it was also rising into the sky. As this was happening I alerted three friends of what I was seeing. We then watched what we believe to be Mars come out from an obstructed cloud cover. The object appeared about one quarter the size of the moon, was reddish-orange in color and continued to rise for the next 15-25 minutes. During this time, it would be slightly covered by clouds at different intervals and then would come into full view. Finally the cloud cover became too dense and we could see no more of this sight. I returned to the same spot for the next 4 nights and was unable to see this same image. <br /><br />Has anyone else seen this sight? <br /><br />I was under the impression that the view we would be seeing of Mars would be much smaller and obviously more distant?
 
F

frostbrewed

Guest
Yeah, It was probably Mars. Mars will be visible until around the end of may 06' Best views will be this fall though. Mars will rise in the east and will be a little "higher" in the sky at sundown as time goes by. Jupiter and Venus is also visible at sundown in the West, they are the first 2 "stars" in the sky, Jupiter will be the small one..................................................Frost
 
D

dvo3675

Guest
That is what I have come to understand. Does anyone have an explanation for this sight? I am honestly baffled.
 
I

igorsboss

Guest
Ok, I'll start with the assumptions that you were indeed looking at Mars, and that you really did see Mars appearing about 1/4 of the size of the full moon. In good seeing conditions, Mars would appear not much larger than a dot. You might be able to make it out as a circle in binoculars.<br /><br />How can this be? Since your report Mars to be larger than a dot, I tend to believe that your seeing was poor.<br /><br />You also report that you were on a beach, and that Mars was coming out from behind a cloud bank. Beaches and Clouds involve lots of water. I suspect the humidity was near 100%, and that a very diffuse fog had begun to form.<br /><br />Think about looking at headlights through fog. They appear much larger around than normal. Perhaps this same fog effect is what made Mars appear so large.<br /><br /> Does this match your observations? If it were true, Mars would appear round but featureless. It would appear as a blurry circle.
 
M

markj_87

Guest
Do you have slightly poor vision, dvo? Igorsboss could be correct when he said the size discrepancy could be due to short-sightedness. My eyes are very poor, and if I looked at Mars without glasses or contact lenses, it would appear much larger than it actually is because of this. With only a small visual defect it could still appear quite a bit larger.
 
I

igorsboss

Guest
crazyeddie: <font color="yellow">Impossible.</font><br /><br />Unlikely, yes, impossible, no. I absolutely agree that, in optimal seeing conditions, <font color="yellow">Mars is less than 20 arcseconds in diameter.</font><br /><br />Go outside on a foggy night and look at a streetlight. The fog around the streetlight appears illuminated. This is the effect I'm talking about.<br /><br />However, if there was a very slight fog, the (slightly off-axis) light from Mars might refract off the tiny particles of water in the air, slightly changing the direction of the light. This would be observed as a small ring around Mars. If the light was refracted by between 0 and 4 arcminutes, this ring would be the described size.<br /><br />If this were the case, all the stars would have this ring around them, not just Mars.
 
D

dvo3675

Guest
I didn't believe it to be a reflection of sorts. The sight didn't look blurred so much as obstructed. It seemed as if it appeared through the clouds at just about the horizon. As more of it was revealed, it continued to move up from the horizon in what I assumed was an orbit. As it moved the clouds would pass between ourselves and the object altering what we saw. This continued until the cloud cover got too thick. Here is a low res pic of what we saw. Keep in mind that I took this with a camera with a low quality zoom and no tripod. This photo best represents the extent of what we saw. It is a circular orange object with clouds passing in the front.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts