Mars now - best view till 2018

[toothferry]

I noticed Mars low in the eastern sky last night, bright and glowing red. Is anyone making special plans for viewing Mars this fall, like buying a new instrument, eye pieces or making a special trip(s) for observations? This fall will be a second chance for those who missed last summer's prime acquisition (like myself). We can posts our Mars observations and updates here. <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" />

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

I am new at planet hunting. I'm in South-East North Carolina. Can you tell me in layman's words how can I find Mars? East/West/North/South sky, approx. at what angle from the horizon, etc? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#ff0000"><strong>Earth is Boring</strong></font> </div>

 

[lunatio_gordin]

Wow, me too. Do you go to any of the astronomy clubs around here? i was wondering about them...

 

[frostbrewed]

Tonight 8/22: The moonrise will be at around 9:00, rising from the SE. Mars will follow close to the same path as the moon tonight, rising at around 10:30. Mars will be due East at 12:30 at around 20 degrees off the eastern horizon.<br />Tomorrow 8/23: The moonrise will be around 9:30, rising from the SE. Mars will follow almost the identical path as the moon across the sky. Mars will rise at around 10:30 and will be due east at around 12:30 and pretty close to the moons position. Viewing may be obscured by moonlight!<br />Mars will look like a big star with an unmistakable red hue. ...........................................Daniel

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

@Lunatio:<br />I haven't been at any of the local astro clubs yet, but I located 2 in this regions. One is at the UNC Wilmington, and the other in Myrtle Beach. Both have real bad unpredictable websites. There is a big observatory up north after Jacksonville, I forgot the name of the town.<br /><br />Besides, this area is not very good for stargazing, every night is cloudy night. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#ff0000"><strong>Earth is Boring</strong></font> </div>

 

[lunatio_gordin]

tell me about it... I've only been able to use my telescope on a half dozen occasions over the last two or three years! it's either far too humid, or far too cloudy... <br />it's Moorehead planetarium, i believe. If my memory serves me, they did some Apollo astronaut training there!

 

[toothferry]

Nice Equipment! ..how are the observations going. can you see a polar cap?

 

[BReif]

Yes, actually, I purchased a new Orion XT10 Dobsonian reflector telescope now at this time so that I would't miss Mars this year.

 

[toothferry]

I purchased the same, their Intelliscope with controller actually, and their shorty-plus Barlow in addition to a couple of xtra EPs: Expanse 6mm, Plossl 32mm. The only thing hold me back is poor seeing conditions. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

 

[telescopewizard]

If you plan on decent viewing mars make sure you have something with a hefty focal length and 5x barlow.

 

[eosophobiac]

I checked out Mars this past Saturday evening, around 9:00p. The moon was pretty bright, but Mars was still easily visible, and very pretty! I use binoculars - for now - but even with just those, it was an incredible sight! Looking forward to the 29th!<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

I had to get up very early for work on Saturday and Sunday.<br /><br />Sunday morning, about 5:30 am - Mars was definitely visible to the naked eye and showed it's reddish color well.<br /><br />I almost waited until the next subway watching it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[eosophobiac]

I get up for work pretty early, too. And after I get there, I sneak out and look up - weather permitting! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> This morning was especially beautiful, with the Moon and Mars being so close, and Saturn bright as well. Plus, with Orion between them, it made for a really nice view. And I even caught an Orionid flash! <br />What a good way to start the otherwise mundane work day!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[newtonian]

eosophobiac - Yes, that was a beautiful naked eye view of Mars last night!<br /><br />How bright (luminosity) is Mars now compared with an average full Venus?

 

[eosophobiac]

I'm still fairly new to sky-gazing, and don't know much about calculating (if that's possible) the luminosity of a planet. I did google 'planet luminosity', and checked out several links, but didn't find anything definite on how to calculate, or which is brighter, and whatnot. (If you ever find anything out about this, could you post it and share? Thanks!) <br />I do, however, think Venus would be brighter, only because the reddish-ness of Mars isn't as noticeable, or it doesn't grab your eye like bright, shiny Venus does, when you're looking skyward. That's only my two pennies, though.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

You're looking for apparent magnitude, not luminosity. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I found a cool page with this kind of information on it: Sky Report. <br /><br />"Venus is a splendid sight, visible in the west as soon as the Sun goes down. It has finally stopped hugging the horizon as it has been doing since last spring, and can now be seen against a dark sky. At mid-month it sets nearly two hours after the Sun. During October Venus brightens from magnitude -4.0 to -4.3; other than the Sun and Moon, it is by far the brightest object in the sky. (Due to its relatively low altitude and startling brilliance, it is often mistaken for an airplane landing light!) Venus will be even more prominent in the next couple of months; it reaches greatest eastern elongation from the Sun in early November and greatest brilliancy in early December."<br /><br />"During October Mars will brighten from an already impressive magnitude -1.7 to magnitude -2.3. In a telescope, its disk will grow from 17.8 arc-seconds across to 20.2" across. This is plenty big enough to reveal a host of surface features on the planet. Though the South Polar Cap has all but vanished during the Southern Hemisphere's summer, the dark and light albedo markings will present a wealth of detail. To see which part of the surface is visible at any time, please use the Mars Profiler at Sky & Telescope Magazine's web page." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[newtonian]

Calli - Thank you for the link and info.<br /><br />OK, is magnitude 4.0 twice as bright as magnitude 2.0?

 

[jcdenton]

No, apparent magnitude is a recursive scale where each level is roughly 2.5x brighter than the previous. So Venus at mag. -4.0 is approximately 6.25x brighter than Mars at mag. -2.0. At the top of the scale is the Sun at mag. -26, and at the bottom is the Hubble Deep Field at around mag. 30. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[newtonian]

jcdenton - thank you.<br /><br />Why did they choose 2.5 times brighter instead of 10 times brighter?

 

[CalliArcale]

There's actually an interesting story behind that. I will hopefully get it right.<br /><br />The system was devised in ancient times by a Greek philosopher. (Philosophy and science were the same thing to the ancient Greeks.) I don't recall which one, unfortunately. He carefully observed the stars in the sky and classed them into six groups. He picked Vega to define "magnitude 1" and then looked for stars which he judged visually to be half as bright. They were magnitude 2. Those half as bright as the mag 2 group were magnitude 3, and so on. However, what he didn't know was that due to the way the human eye and brain work together to compare brightnesses, this series of comparisons produced a logarithmic scale, so a magnitude 3 star is not 1/4 as bright as magnitude 1, but is in fact a lot dimmer than that. I don't recall the exact details for why. There was a magnificent explanation of it on "Connections" once, but I couldn't reproduce the explanation if I tried. All I remember is that it made perfect sense to me. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[jcdenton]

Here's an explanation from wikipedia:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">In 1856, Pogson formalized the system by defining a typical first magnitude star as a star which is 100 times brighter than a typical sixth magnitude star; thus, a first magnitude star is about 2.512 times brighter than a second magnitude star. The fifth root of 100, an irrational number about (2.512) is known as Pogson's Ratio. Pogson's scale was originally fixed by assigning Polaris a magnitude of 2. Astronomers later discovered that Polaris is slightly variable, so they first switched to Vega as the standard reference star, and then switched to using tabulated zero points for the measured fluxes.</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[toothferry]

Mars was a fantastic bright orange orb during the Saturday Night Night Sky, Oct 22. Great seeing conditions, unfortunately I didn't have my XT10 with me. I don't want to miss Mars this go around, though. And so I hope to get it in my viewfinder this week. <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" />

 

[markj_87]

Mars looked great on friday night. There was partial cloud but it shined through much of it. The sight of Mars, Taurus and the Pleiades in such close proximity in the sky is amazing. I saw an orange orionid meteor shoot between Betelgeuse and Bellatrix as well, which was the icing on the cake.

 

[toothferry]

Using Orion's XT10, I checked out Mars on Saturday night, Oct.29th at about 10:45pm using the 10mm supplied plossl and also the 6mm Expanse series eyepiece, both in combination with a 2X barlow, the "shorty plus" 3-element design. The plossl combination had more contrast, the expanse a bit more magnification to make the globe appear larger. I enjoyed using the plossl a bit more, perhaps I was pushing the magnifaction too much, but a high pressure close to Jackson MS gave me exceptional visibility that night.<br /><br />What I saw was a bright yellowish/orange orb with the only textures or gray areas noticable being a large "T" lying on its side, centered on the planet like a patch, with the top to the right.. I changed eyepieces and saw the same thing. I was expecting to see more natural gray tones randomly scattered around. although the "T" was faint it appeared almost like an emblem stenciled into the Planet.<br /><br />Was that just an unusual cloud formation, or what was I supposed to have seen?

 

[toothferry]

Mars is flying away fast. Here's my sketch..