Astronomy Buff

Cool Mars/Moon Christmastime Dance Tomorrow Night

by Tony on December 22nd, 2007

I was playing with Stellarium and noticed this cool little alignment between the Moon and Mars on the 23rd of December, tomorrow night. Click on any of the images below to see a bigger one. All of these images are for the same time each night, from December 22, 23, 24 at about 7:30pm MST, or 9:30pm EST.

Here’s the configuration on December 22nd:

December 22, 2007. Moon and Mars get closer together.

December 23, 2007. The Mars won’t actually be behind the Moon, it just looks that way because I have the Moon scaled to be big in this picture.

Close up of nearest alignment. This would make an awesome image. Looks like it’ll get closest at about 7:31pm Boulder time, so 9:31pm EST.

Christmas Eve. Moving apart now.

Just thought this was cool. If you’re not one of those people who go crazy this time of year trying to fill your house with stuff you don’t need and others don’t want, and you have the time, go out tomorrow night with your binocs or scope and check it out.

Technorati Tags: lunar occultations, mars, moon

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POSTED IN: observing the night sky