Mars 2003

[ABEL]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread in here about Mars yet.

Everyne GET OUT AND SEE MARS!!!!!!!!!! NOWWWWW! DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

This Wednesday, August 27, Mars will be the closest it's been to Earth in 60,000 years! Tha'ts 34,650,000 miles (55,760,000 km) away. The Neanderthals were the last ones to see Mars this close!

How do you find Mars? Just get out and look up! Just after sunset it will be towards the southeast. It will be a very bright orangish-red looking "star" that doesn't twinkle. (planets don't twinkle, stars do) You don't have to wait till Wednesday either...you can go out and see it right NOW too!

Be sure to check your local newspapers and news broadcasts this week. There are a lot of local astronomy clubs and planetariums that are having public star parties. I know there are several in my area on Wednesday and then again on Saturday.

Mars will NOT be this close again until the year 2287!


Here are a few links I found about viewing Mars:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18jun_approachingmars.htm

http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/422xesjq.asp

http://www.astronomy.com/message/me...geGUID={42CBD5A5-42C0-4B82-A787-DBCD34114EDC}

http://www.astronomytoday.com/

http://www.planetary.org/marswatch2003/

 

[guaca]

Im gonna take a gander tonight at sunset...they say between 8 and midnight is a good time to view...Ill be waiting for your pics tomorrow...

 

[~LadyLemon~]

Actually, there was a big thread on mars. I smell a merge coming on!

 

[oliveu2cm]

Wohooo!!

 

[nbcrusader]

Here is the best picture yet:

 

[ABEL]

actually, for those of you who haven't seen these yet in my journal, here are two pics I took last Friday nite. I was at my astronomy club meeting, and someone had a telescope set up....all I did was point my digital camera thru the telescope. I was surprised at how well the pics turned out...you can even see the polar ice cap (the brighter whitish spot on the top left of the pic). I'm going to take more pics at the star party I'm going to on Wednesday.

 

[guaca]

coolllllll..ice caps...hmmm..must go to Tims...

 

[ABEL]

coolllllll..ice caps...hmmm..must go to Tims...

who's Tim?

 

[guaca]

Oh ABEL.....



Tim is only the most well known Canadian known to mankind....and Mr Horton will be sad that you did not know that...and for the record Tim does not use flavour crystals...



*wonders how Mars-inhabitants get their Iced Caps*

Maybe they shoot their silly string down to the nearest drive thru and attach a foreign sticky substance to the end which will grab those cups...and send them on their way..zing

 

[ABEL]

silly string

 

[cass]

Our local Astronomical Society are having a get-together tonight( being Aussie's they are starting off with a BBQ...hope they don't smoke up the atmosphere) It has been a perfectly clear couple of nights here, so I think they are in for a good viewing.
I have mentioned before we went halves many years ago in the cost of a 4 inch telescope with our American neighbour. I saw Venus for the first time through it and he managed to take fantastic photos of Haley's Comet through it. But we no longer socialise with him( I think he might actually be from Mars...I know he likes to make people think as much and would be delighted I just said that), so we just let him have the telescope ALLLLLLLLL to himself. Good fences make good neighbours...so someone once said one frosty night
I don't get near as excited about anything in the night sky as the moon. I love watching it go through it's phases and a pair of binoculars are quite adequate for that.
Enjoy the energy of the event ABEL....bom, bom, bom, satelite of love
I'll spare a thought tonight for the Brasilian technicians who lost their lives in the quest for knowledge recently.
My favourite planet of all is the small blue one...it's mostly harmless.
Don't Panic..the white mice did it!
RIP DNA, you're missed down here mate.

 

[~LadyLemon~]

Well I'm off to an observatory...

 

[agentmissa]

it looked pink to me... when I was lookin at it, a plain went over head and freaked me out.

 

[ABEL]

OMG I Star Parties!!!!!!

Even when the star of the party isn't really a star at all but rather a planet

I'm soooooo tired...I was out there tonite from about 8:40pm till 1:30am!!! There were about 15 telescopes there. No one was able to get an accurate head count, but there must have been around 2000 people there! the lines were incredibly long for the telescopes! I was amazed, that even at one point when the clouds started to move in, people still stood and waited in line for about 30 minutes or so for the clouds to clear!

I actually didn't even get as much time looking in the telescopes as I had wanted to, because the lines were so long. Since I'm a member of the Astronomy Club, I was also walking around talking to people, telling people about the club, passing out stickers to the kids, pointing out Mars to people in the sky.

It's so fun talking to people about astronomy...even tho I don't know as much about astronomy as some of the club members, I still know more than a lot of the people who come to the star parties. As soon as I mentioned that I was one of the members of the Astronomy Club to people standing around me in line while we were waiting to look thru one of the telescopes, their ears kinda perk up and they look excited, and start asking me all kinds of questions about Mars and astronomy in general....of course some of the questions I was still kinda about

There's another star party here on Saturday, so I get to do it all over again (if it's not raining that is, which it very well might be )

I'm sooo tired now. I'll post pics tomorrow (I have to recharge my camera tonite). I'll also write more details in my journal about the star party.

I hope everyone got out and got to see Mars!



oh yeah...the planetarium director even got interviewed by ABC News Radio tonight! I don't know when the interview will be on, or if it was already on...but if any of you were listening to ABC News Radio tonite, and heard them talk about a star party in Dallas, I was there!

 

[FizzingWhizzbees]

I've been watching from my back garden...I'm boring like that.

 

[cass]

Good on you ABEL, turning on all those potential new minds.I'm glad you had a fun night.
I wanted to say it was Saturn I saw for the first time with our big telescope( I said Venus up there in my post). The rings really ARE there!!
I listened to the radio yesterday...boy some of the general publica are so dumb it's a little bit scary. Maybe it's just the people who bother to ring up talkback radio? It was like after Halley's and the Leonid Showers. It is like they were expecting to see great huge balls of almost blinding lights in the sky and feel the wind as the objects passed the earth...( we're talking the universe here people, its' bloody big, "close" isn't all that close).
It's the orbit of Mars as much as the distance that is exciting this time "around".
One good thing...the telescope salespeople in Oz are having a bonanza and acoording to some people I heard on the radio, they are so disappinted in what they saw, they will be selling their new telescopes very cheaply at their next lawn sale( idiots!..imho) I'm a bit worried people are going to start perving on their neighbours now, with all theses new telescopes people have, seeing as the night sky is so disappointing.
Sorry ABEL...I'm ranting...but geez mate...some people just...it's kinda a cross between amazement and disappointment.
I wonder what is going on over in the Pelaides while all eyes are on Mars?
we all know little green men come from Ireland, eh?
I hear they just found some warm patches on Mars too..hmmmmm.

Good on you ABEL...you must be more patient than me.
It's beautiful up there, isn't it?I've always wanted a skydome in my roof. I wonder of Bono and Ali built that glass vestibule they planned in their house? That is where I would camp out if I stayed with them......wish upon a star
It's getting dry here again...so sorry local astronomers...I'm praying for HEAVY rain to set in.

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

thank goodness for the internet and the news. otherwise i would have never seen it.

smog

 

[Strato Edge]

I saw Mars!

 

[Mango]

I'm sorry. Mars is highly overrated. The best planet in this solar system is Jupiter. Followed by Earth, Saturn, and then Mars.

 

[mmmBono]

long before I knew about Mars being close, yadda yadda...I was putting the trash out one night about a month ago....it was around 10 pm...and my eyes gravitated towards this odd yellowish thing in the sky....I thought it was so cool...and yet I had this feeling it wasn't a star. Turns out I was right.
It was about 2 weeks later I started to hear all this stuff about Mars....
I LOVE astronomy.....
I wish I had a fookin telescope
What's cool about this whole thing aside from it being rare....it really makes alot of people regain an appreciation for what's out there. There is so much beauty out there to behold and we tend to get so busy in life that we forget to pause and really LOOK at things.

 

[bono_man2002]

i missed it.....damn clouds!