Did anyone see Mars?

[gini]

Originally posted by RICHARD
Gini,
What's a Pet Talker?? lololol

I think the neighborhoood folks are starting to notice that the lady 'up the street' has been acting strangely in the last few months....

not gonna mention 'purple furry monkeys'....

L M A O!

[popcornbird]

I think I saw it. I looked out the window last night, and saw a big and bright red/orangish star looking thing in the sky. I know it was Mars, just wish my telescope wasn't broken so I could have a better view. Kids really do have to touch everything when they come to our house. If it wasn't for those horrible kids, I would still have my belove telescope, but now, it rests in peace.

[boscibo]

Mars has been very bright all month. The way to know it's Mars is it is red/orange. Planets in general don't "twinkle" like stars, their light is more steady (although they can appear to twinkle because of atmospheric conditions). Mars is large right now, I have heard some people describe it a looking like an airplane coming in to land.

Other planets are visible to the naked eye at times, too, depending on where it is in the sky. I have been able to spot Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus without a telescope or binoculars. Mercury is trickier since it is so close to the Sun, but it is possible.

You don't necessarily need a telescope, a good pair of binoculars is probably easier for a beginner.

[bluekat]

I love astronomy too. I'm very curious about it
That night during the blackout, we were all outside just looking at the beautiful stars That was so much fun, I wish it happened againWe saw shooting stars and the big dipper

[Fuzzy317]

The area around me is too metro-Atlanta/city. I cannot see stars most nights.

[sasha the cat]

Hi, mew-

MARS would be that round, red circle in the sky -- and MARS does not twinkle because MARS is a planet, not a star. Stars "twinkle".

Find MARS tonight: go outside just as dusk turns to night sky. Right now we are in the new moon phase (sliver of a moon) so it is the best time to see MARS. Look up to the EAST (where the sun rises everyday) and you will see the red ball in the sky.

Go to website http://www.space.com/spacewatch/where_is_mars.html which has a map of where MARS is located. We can see Mars many, many nights (and Venus, Jupiter, etc) with the naked eye. Just need to know it rises in the East & sets in the West as does the Moon & Sun and everything in the sky.

Hope there are no clouds in the sky tonight where you live...Imagine, no human eyes from the time of Genesis in the Bible to 2003 have seen Mars this close to Earth. We are the lucky ones to see it and the next ones will be about 50,000 years from now.

My KatMa's human son is an Astro-Physicist (he is my purrson brother) -- and I'm the furkid, Queen Sasha, mew-mew.

[RubyMutt]

My dad and I set up the telescope the other night and checked it out. It was pretty cool. (I wish we could be back in Yellowstone or anywhere else with clearer skies and less "light pollution") I got some horrible (really, HORRIBLE) photos of it. Here's the only one that I believe is *barely* post-worthy:


Mars in all its glory

[IttyBittyKitty]

We are getting a great view in the southern hemisphere too!

Wow, I have been noticing Mars for the last two weeks now, glowing pale orange over the night sky. A couple of years back, in 1999, it was also big and bright. It is really hard to miss it at the moment and the papers and TV news have spread the word so that idiots with camcorders don't film the strange orange UFO in the sky or ring the police in hysterics!

We also get good views of Jupiter and Venus from time to time. Venus is big and bright during our summer time!

[Kater]

Last Wednesday I stood in line for over an hour to see Mars through the college's observatory telescope. We ended up not getting to go into the observatory at all (only the first 200 were allowed in) but there were 3 almost equally powerful telescopes set up on the grass outside the observatory. I looked at Mars through one and could see some shadows -- could have been craters? or gases?-- it was a neat experience. We could see it with our "undressed" eye too as we were waiting in line.