i was surfing through yahoo news links before and found this
so i went outside and walked down the street a little bit, and wow. my dad used to show me where different planets and such were when i was younger, and i remember him waking me and my brother up once or twice in the middle of the night to go look at comets and the like when i was little. i’ve never seen anything like it before. it’s putting all the stars and planets to shame, it’s so bright.
anyone else going stargazing?
AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! It’s too darn cloudy here for me to see it! :mad:
I stalked Uma Thurman once.
Yep, went to the local observatory a couple of nights ago. Didn’t get to the main 'scope, too crowded, so looked through one of the smaller ones (maybe 6"-8" lens). Even with that Mars was pretty small; you could kinda see coloured areas but no distinct actual features.
So don’t get your expectations up.
If you hadn’t been reading all the hype, you wouldn’t even notice it any more than usual with the naked eye. It’s not like it’s taking up half the sky or looking like the full moon.
Some surface detail was visible through my 6" Dobsonian + 6.3 mm Plossl eyepiece. The southern ice cap was distinct, though the equatorial features were just a brownish blur. The humidity and heat radiation here in GA made the seeing cruddy, but Mars was worth spooking the neighbors with the scope.
I wouldn’t go that far. It’s really bright, and even here in the skyglow of Sydney quite distinctively red-yellow with the naked eye.
I gave myself a bruised eyelid while waching it through a pair of too-heavy binoculars sans tripod.
BONK “Ouch! Oops.”
Wasn’t even that special. Just a very bright, reddish dot. Curse you, Mars, curse you all to hell.
Yeah, I definitely would have noticed it–it’s bright enough to pierce through glare and haze of Kalamazoo’s night sky. It is quite bright.
Anyone else open this thread thinking the OP was riffing on Harry Potter?
I’ve been hearing that Harry Potter line for weeks now.
I’ve been out several times in the past month, including last night where I helped host an observing night. Through an 8" with a 7.5mm objective I could make out both polar caps and some of the dark lowland/dust structures. It was really quite impressive.
Check out this moron:
I saw it a couple of nights ago, and it IS impressive. The glare of Seattle keeps me from seeing any stars where I live, so I didn’t expect to be able to see Mars. Yet there it is, far too big to be an ordinary star or planet (I know it’s an ordinary planet, just not at the ordinary distance), looking like a big orange omen or something. Other than the moon, it’s the only object visible in the sky at night.
Mars has been pointed out to me many times in the past, when it was just a reddish dot hardly different from the stars. This is not like that. It’s, like, really big.
Like other city dwellers, I was thrilled to be able to see Mars despite the haze of light pollution.
I kept thinking it must be something else. Couldn’t believe my good fortune. Eventually, I fell asleep. (I was laying in the backyard.)
But I’m still trying for a star party in the country this weekend.
OK, I would like to try and see it, where should I look? I live in the NE US, will I be able to see it at all tonight?
Unless it’s cloudy, you’ll definitely be able to see it. Look in the east/southeastern sky about one hour after sunset. Mars will be starlike, faintly yellow-orange, and VERY bright - right now, it’s the brightest object in the sky except for the Moon. It will be up all night, slowly moving from east to south and finally setting in the west near sunrise. Enjoy!
Yes, if it’s not cloudy … look in the southeast, at about moonrise or later. It was well enough above the horizon at 10:00 the other night, probably was visible for some time earlier.
BTW - There is no moon tonight in New York…so don’t look for that. Currently Mars is up, though, so you should be able to see it if you look almost exactly south east and not too high up.
I’m pretty sure I’m looking at it now, but my sceptical SO is telling me it’s a radio tower light…I just ran kstars and it showed that mars should be exactly where I said it was! He finally caved as I was writing this post 
She’s out there, all right - beautiful indeed.
STILL too cloudy! :mad: