Astronomy Buff

Mars is Approaching Opposition

by Tony on September 29th, 2007

I know I’m a little early, but Mars is approaching opposition and will give us some of the best views of the planet we’re going to see for a while, and I want you guys ready.

Mars and Earth will be at their closest on December 18th, so we’ve got a while, but every day until that day, Mars will get appear larger and larger in our eyepieces.

This won’t be one of the most favorable alignments we’ve ever had, but it won’t be the worst either. The best occurred back in August 2003 when Mars grew to an apparent diameter of 25.1 arcseconds. During this year’s opposition, Mars will have an apparent diameter of 15.9 arcseconds, still pretty impressive.

This year, I plan to use my new mobile observatory to go out and try to image the planet using my 10″ LX200 and a webcam. I did this in August 2003 and again in October 2005 (when Mars was 20.2 arcseconds) but the images were very poor due primarily to my backyard location (yeah, that was it, it was the location…).

This year will be different I hope. Anyway, if you’re thinking about buying a telescope, now’s a great time to get it. Mars will look amazing right around Christmas time, good excuse to get the family a telescope for the holidays.

Good all-around telescopes that I recommend are the Edmund Astroscan and the Meade Lightbridge Dobsonians. These aren’t ideal planetary telescopes, but they are good all-purpose ones that will give great views of the planets.

It’s time to get out there people, the northern hemisphere skies are about to become colder, steadier and (for me and my RV), darker. Mars will take your breath away.

Image Credit: NASA

Technorati Tags: astroscan, mars, mars opposition 2007, Meade Lightbridge, telescopes

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POSTED IN: general astronomy, mars