Close encounter with Mars

[k4kyv]

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is
catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest
approach between the two planets in recorded history.

The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within
34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest
object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will
appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification,
Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be
easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at
10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at
nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m.! That's
pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in
recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to
see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.

Share this with your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN!

[K1JJ]

Yep, Mars is a challenging object becuz of its small angular size, being far away, rather small and lack of sharp detail. So, even when it comes close, it requires high magnification to see much detail. The downside is that the turbulant Earth's atmosphere gets magnified too, and on most nights you will only see a "boiling red blob".   The Fall is usually the best for stable viewing, so lucky it will be in Aug/Sept area.

I use a 22" homebrew reflector here and have generally been disappointed unless it is VERY high in the sky with little air to see thru. In contrast, the galaxies, globular clusters, Jup, Sat and moon are spectacular.

The idea is to view it many nights and sometimes catch a stable atmosphere to run up the magnification.   The most prominent feature is the white polar caps and red deserts. Over days you may note the slow movement of dust storms.

But in general, don't expect to see much detail except for the white caps and pastel hues of the body.  Even on a stable mountaintop environment with a large telescope, the views are not the type that knock your socks off compared to Jupiter, Saturn or the moon.

But we're all in the same boat, viewing-wise, so it becomes a challenge to see what you can of our most likely planetary neighbor to support future life.

T

[WD8BIL]

Vu... are you setup to take pixs thru that 22" beast

[K1JJ]

Vu... are you setup to take pixs thru that 22" beast

Hi Bud,

I built a CCD camera for astronomy back in '94 and used it for awhile. But, I found I liked visual astronomy better and dismantled the system.

There's some great shots on the web, of course.

T

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Tom - warn us if you see flashes on Mars... it will mean the Martians are on their way.  I heard that there was some show in 1938 about that

[Tom WA3KLR]

Close Encounter with Mars in 2005 - Not So!  Read on -
 
Email example contributed by A. Sanchez, 25 July 2003:
Watch the Sky!

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next month the Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.  Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky.  It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide.  At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.  Mars will be easy to spot.

At the beginning of August, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.  By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m.  That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in recorded history.  So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grows progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share with your children and grandchildren.  No one alive today will ever see this again.

Comments:  True!  Space expert Nick Greene writes: "August of 2003 is a special time for scientists and amateur astronomers. Our red neighbor, Mars will move closer than it’s been in 50,000 years. On August 27, 2003, the 'red planet' will be less than 55.76 million kilometers (34.65 million miles) away from the Earth."  See resources below for more information.

2005 Update:  In May 2005 this same message began circulating anew. Though clearly the same "once in a lifetime" celestial event can't occur again, whoever recycled the email probably did so because astronomers have announced that the orbits of the Earth and Mars will draw closer than usual in October 2005 — just not quite as close as in 2003.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I saw a sign for Mars when I left Butler, PA, heading to the PA Turnpike.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

As indicated in Tom's post; check your sources.
Here's the story:

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

[w1guh]

And,  hmmmm, I remember reading things like "as close as it will be for years and years" last year.  Well, I'm glad for the second chance.

As for a decent scope for planetary viewing....

I've only got a low end 4" Maksutov-Cassegrian, or, anyhow spelled something like that.  Both Meade and Celestron make good models of those.  I'm not saying which one I've got, I'm sure the "other" brand would be as good or maybe even better.  4" has plenty of light capturing for the solar system, at least out to Saturn, and the optics in those models does reveal what surface detail there is to see.   (Of course, if I had a QTH to warrant it I'd much prefer a good 8" or bigger Newtonian. )  And another note about optics.  At least for most casual viewing, I've liked the zoom eyepiece I got for my scope.  I can find the object at low manification, then zoom in.  The other thing that's useful is one of those "laser" spotting devices.  It's not really a laser, but a LED that's set up to appear to be projecting itself onto the object.  These are much easier to aim with than the traditional optical finder scope.

But the most important thing (after, of course, optical performance) is a motor drive.  Both of the two brands I mentioned have one, and that makes a HUGE difference in viewing.  With the magnifications required for planetary details, manually following the motion of the object is extremely distracting and detracts severely from just viewing the object.  OTOH, with a motor drive you're free  to just stare.  (Well, OK, I haven't been able to align my 'scope perfectly, but the corrections that are necessary are much less distracting than continously following an object).

Looking through a scope  takes a bit of getting used to.  The more you stare through it and get used to, and good at, looking at  the object, the more you see.  Sure, you can take a quick glance and say, "Cool!".  But if you stick with it and put in the woodshed time you'll be rewarded with much more detail than what you see at first.  This can also alleviate somewhat nights of "bad seeing" e.g. turbulent atmosphere.  Once in a while on a bad seeing night, the atomsphere will momentarily calm and you'll get nice detail.  Again, with a motor drive you'll use less energy tracking and more energy for patience with the atmosphere.  But there are those nights when the atmosphere is so murky I almost get seasick looking!

Last year when I looked at Mars I got lucky.  I usually had a nice calm sky to look through, and the reward was I got to see not only the ice caps but some of the darker and lighter areas of the rest of the surface.

And, needless to say, the same scope has given me some nice looks at Saturn and Jupiter.  

And then there's the 811A powered scope.  Blendingthe object's motion, the atmosphere's dance, and the object itself to really gives one a feeling for the Solar System.  After a while, you can start to see the planet as a sphere, and not just a disk (especially wiht the moons of Jupiter).  Not to be missed.

And, incidentally, terestrial viewing the the scope is awesome.

Paul

[David, K3TUE]

I wonder if the EME crowd will be attempting to bounce a signal off of it at that proximity.

[k4kyv]

There's a new rumour going around the Internet. Maybe an excited friend has sent an email about a once in a lifetime chance to see Mars. Mars is going to make its closest approach on October 30th, 2005, and look bigger and brighter than it has in two years. Unfortunately, the closest approach actually happened two years ago, in August 2003, when the Earth and Mars were closer than they had been for 50,000 years.

Some have misinterpreted this story to mean that Mars will look as big and bright as the full moon.

Note the typo in the word "hoax" in the url.  

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/beware_mars_haox.html?872005