Mars - Earth Close Encounter

Palomar · 2005-10-11 11:45:58

*Hi Mundaka: Intermittent T-storms haven't stopped me.

Against the odds:

Yes -- this is a photo of Phobos and Deimos, taken by S. Bodin of Washington. Wow, congrats to him. Accomplished with a 16-inch telescope and color video camera on October 10th.

They're tiny, less than 22 km wide, dim and rarely seen through a telescope. Mars itself shines 242,000 times brighter than Phobos and 741,000 times brighter than Deimos. The two moons get lost in the glare.

Not surprising.

Mr. Bodin says:

"This is a composite of two exposures: a short exposure for Mars and a longer one to capture the faint moons"..."Note the two 12th-magnitude stars visible to the upper right of Mars."

Photo and info courtesy spaceweather.com

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-16 08:05:01

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/1 … Warren.jpg

*Terrific photo collage. Spans dates of June 23 through October 8.

An 8" telescope was used by Mr. Warren of TX.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-18 05:26:36

*Won't create a new thread for this (want to avoid cross-postings):

Mars & Moon

Sky map is being hosted by spaceweather.com. Their recommended viewing time is 9:30 p.m. your time.

I've been watching Mars rising in the east; it's coming right up over the tallest peaks of a nearby chain of mountains. Twice we've been driving down a wide residential road with Mars above, glowing mellow orange and straight ahead; seems like we could drive to it.

It'll be nice having Mars gracing the autumn and winter skies; especially autumn, as the constellations of this season are dim and lackluster.

--Cindy

P.S.: Venus is currently near Antares (the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius) in the Western sky. So we've got two of Mars' rivals teaming up with one another.

Palomar · 2005-10-18 10:56:39

*Dust storm brewing on Mars, in the Chryse region. Amateurs are, of course, photographing Mars as it continues its approach.

Kickin' up dust

Wonder if it'll turn into one of those global-wide shindings.

Photo being hosted by spaceweather.com; photographer and instrumentation noted on image.

Caption from spaceweather.com:

DUST ALERT: There's a dust storm brewing on Mars big enough to see through backyard telescopes. Stay tuned for updates.

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-19 21:09:02

I've been noticing the Mars and Moon paring the last couple of nights, it's really wonderful. The moon is so bright here though that the glare almost "blinds" me! If I look straight at it and then look at the stars my eyes need time to adjust, it's really that bright! Wonderfully beautiful. You can easily see your shadow from the moonshine.

Palomar · 2005-10-20 04:51:10

*More on the current Martian dust storm:

Date & credits on image

Mr. Owens took that with a 14" telescope. VERY nice. Here's spaceweather.com's comment caption:

The dust storm is the bright sinuous feature near the middle of the planet. If its shape reminds you of Valles Marineris, you're right. The storm seems to be snaking its way down the great Martian canyon--a coincidence pointed out by Chip Gentry of the University of Texas.

Credits on each image (photographer, date, equipment):

Dust storm movement over 24-hour period

Collection of photos

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-21 13:57:17

*Is Mars turning GREEN?

You decide

The newest from spaceweather.com. An army of amateur astronomers are keeping dibs on Mars with their trusty cameras. Here's the accompanying caption:

Last night, Joel Warren of Amarillo, Texas, was photographing the storm when he noticed something odd: Mars is turning green.
"Yellow dust clouds are mixing with [icy-blue] morning clouds to create greenish clouds," he explains. Warren is an experienced nightly photographer of Mars. "I'm quite sure [about the green color]," he says.

Time for a magic carpet ride...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-26 05:08:18

Zig-Zag Mars

*The top-most feature on that web page features a series of images obtained by Mr. L. Koehn showing Opposition and Retrograde. Spaceweather.com is hosting the animation at its site, and here's their caption:

For most of 2005, Mars drifted eastward among the stars of Aries and Taurus. On October 1st, the planet reversed course. Now Mars is moving westward. Astronomers call this "retrograde motion," and it's a sign that Earth and Mars are about to have a close encounter...

Mars "in" the constellation Aries [how appropriate!] during this time.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-28 14:26:22

A new Martian dust storm

*Check out the times on the frames -- how swiftly it developed.

Credit is on the photo. 14" telescope used. Other amateur observer reports rolling in too.

A new dust storm is brewing on Mars, and it's a big one. Longtime Mars observer Joel Warren reports: "This morning I imaged the most spectacular and intense cloud I've ever seen on Mars. The speed at which it developed is quite remarkable."...In Racine, Wisconsin, Mark Schmidt saw it, too, and he took pictures through his 14-inch telescope...

Pic & caption hosted by spaceweather.com

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-29 18:43:37

A new Martian dust storm
*Check out the times on the frames -- how swiftly it developed.
Credit is on the photo. 14" telescope used. Other amateur observer reports rolling in too.
A new dust storm is brewing on Mars, and it's a big one. Longtime Mars observer Joel Warren reports: "This morning I imaged the most spectacular and intense cloud I've ever seen on Mars. The speed at which it developed is quite remarkable."...In Racine, Wisconsin, Mark Schmidt saw it, too, and he took pictures through his 14-inch telescope...
Pic & caption hosted by spaceweather.com
--Cindy

+++DUST STORM MOVEMENT:+++

This info and photo are being hosted by spaceweather.com (what else? terrific site). Dates & credits on photo.

The storm is spreading into the Sinus Meridiani region of Mars where NASA's rover Opportunity is located. In the days ahead, the rover might be able to photograph hazy skies or even experience blowing dust. Stay tuned.

Looks like the storm is fanning out, too -- longways.

--Cindy

Stormrage · 2005-10-30 07:43:19

I have the worst luck. In 2003 my Telescope broke so i couldn't even see Mars in detail. Now my Bionocular sucks. I thought 4.5 x 40mm was really good but ended up with one that has a small vewing lens. If that wasn't bad enough. The British weather conspired against me again and became cloudy. You guys in America are lucky. I guess i have to go on a holiday next time Mars comes up.

I also forgot to mention the heatsink of my CPU has snapped of so the manufacturer have taken the Tower to get a new Motherboard. So no PC for few weeks meaning i can't look at the directions for Mars.

Palomar · 2005-11-03 12:56:26

I have the worst luck. In 2003 my Telescope broke so i couldn't even see Mars in detail. Now my Bionocular sucks. I thought 4.5 x 40mm was really good but ended up with one that has a small vewing lens. If that wasn't bad enough. The British weather conspired against me again and became cloudy. You guys in America are lucky. I guess i have to go on a holiday next time Mars comes up.

*Sorry about your broken telescope.

I grew up not far from Racine, Wisconsin (the location of the guy who took that nice photo) and given the weather this time of year (or any portion of the year) it was probably dogged determination on his part. Weather in that region of the U.S. is usually crappy -- clouds, more clouds...and then more clouds.

But I live very far away now; perhaps WI had some unusually nice and clear autumn night-time weather.

Check to see what your nearby planetariums/observatories have to offer. They keep track of weather and etc., we've just barely passed the closest point of the encounter; check with the pros in your vicinity, see if they have schedules for viewing by the public. Good luck.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-03 13:06:59

HST snaps pics of giant Martian dust storm

When Mars orbited close to Earth this past weekend, many skywatchers noticed a large dust storm raging across its surface. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took detailed images that were released today.
This storm has been kicking up dust along the planet's equatorial regions for several weeks, and is about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) long as measured diagonally. A dust storm that large on Earth would cover Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-11-03 13:39:05

Basically we are in Mars Huricane season best I can tell, from reading that it is at its closest to the sun and now is receding which would start to make it cooler.

SpaceNut · 2005-11-03 14:19:18

051103_multimars_hmed_11a.h2.jpg

Hubble pictures show Mars in relative sizes as it was seen from Earth over a series of years, from upper left to lower left: 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005. The 2003 apparition was clearly the biggest.

By looking at the poles in this image it would appear that mars has a 8 year weather cycle.

Palomar · 2005-11-09 06:17:25

Against the odds:
Yes -- this is a photo of Phobos and Deimos, taken by S. Bodin of Washington. Wow, congrats to him. Accomplished with a 16-inch telescope and color video camera on October 10th.
They're tiny, less than 22 km wide, dim and rarely seen through a telescope. Mars itself shines 242,000 times brighter than Phobos and 741,000 times brighter than Deimos. The two moons get lost in the glare.
Not surprising.
Mr. Bodin says:
"This is a composite of two exposures: a short exposure for Mars and a longer one to capture the faint moons"..."Note the two 12th-magnitude stars visible to the upper right of Mars."
Photo and info courtesy spaceweather.com

*And yet another, this time with moons orbiting clearly shown:

That is truly spectacular, via an amateur's scope. Obtained by Mr. J. Boudreau on November 4. Here's the caption:

The animation spans two and a half hours from beginning to end. Says Boudreau: "Each frame is the result of a 2-minute exposure recorded at maximum gain for the moons, which greatly overexposed Mars, immediately followed by a 1-minute exposure at proper settings for Mars itself."

No explanation is given for the "ring" around Mars. Can't be that thin atmosphere, and we all know Mars doesn't have a ring. Must be photography artifact? Wouldn't have been deliberately superimposed onto the photo as we can plainly see Mars. I've not yet given a hand to astrophotography, so I'm thinking it's artifact/glare effect.

Anyway, what a fabulous movie. All being hosted at spaceweather.com.

--Cindy

P.S.: Markings don't appear in the Image link, as they do at spaceweather.com. Of course the brighter (upper) moon is Phobos and the dimmer (lower) is Deimos.

Josh Cryer · 2005-11-09 11:56:31

If you look at the first picture of Mars and its overexposed copy, the "ring" would seem to fit nearly exactly in the overexposed image. So what I think he did is just put a black ring around actual Mars to distinguish it from the overexposure. So yeah, it's a lighting artifact. Mars looks "bigger" in an overexposure due to bleeding, the longer you look at something bright the more that the image gets saturated with light.

Palomar · 2005-11-11 06:24:49

Does Mars have a zit?

*Nope. Olympus Mons at the 9 o'clock position (color photo is best).

Photo by L. Owens of Georgia. 14" telescope.

"Olympus Mons is nice and bright on the evening terminator," notes Owens. Is the volcano erupting? No. It looks bright mainly because one side of the volcano is tilted into the sun, reflecting sunlight back toward Earth. Clouds gathered at the summit add to the reflection.

Pic and caption courtesy spaceweather.com.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-12-23 07:53:40

*Of course the "close encounter" is over. But folks are still snapping pics of Mars for comparison purposes as it speeds away from us (30,000 mph recession speed).

SHRINKING PLANET: If you get a telescope for Christmas, point it at Mars--fast! The red planet is receding from Earth at a speed of 30,000 mph and shrinking as it goes. Using an 8-inch telescope, Joel Warren of Amarillo, Texas, took these two pictures of Mars five weeks apart:
What a difference: By mid-January, Mars will be only half as bright as it is tonight, and its apparent diameter will have decreased from 13 to 9 arcseconds.

All that courtesy of spaceweather.com.

--Cindy

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#26 2005-10-11 11:45:58

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