See Mars Birght Best Until 2016

December 14th, 2007

Mars will be closest, and most visible to Earthlings this month than any time until the year 2016. It is brightest right at dusk on the evening horizon, but it is much easier to see around 8 PM. By then, this brilliant yellow-orange world will be at an altitude of around 30 degrees as seen from mid-northern latitudes.

Space.com gives you a pretty good method to see it:

Your clenched fist held at arm’s length is roughly equal to 10 degrees, so by 8 p.m. Mars will be about “three-fists” up from the east-northeast horizon. Mars appears much sharper and steadier when it crosses the southern meridian, about a half hour after local midnight. Its altitude as seen from most mid-northern latitudes is then about 75-degrees (more than “seven fists” up from the southern horizon).

Unlike earlier in the fall, you won’t have to get up in the early morning hours to see it high in the sky. Mars will be due south just after 11 p.m. on New Year’s night, and around 8:45 p.m. at the end of January.

If you live in the Northern U.S. like I do it starts getting dark at around 5 PM so you should be able to see it closer to 7 PM.

Even a cheap telescope will give you a very good view of the Red Planet right now so if you have one in the back of your closet you should pull it out to take a nice look at the Martian planet. One of the drug treatment centers around where I live is actually using this as something for them to do right now…lol

Mars is retrograding (moving westward) through the stars of Gemini and will cross over into Taurus on Dec. 30. It will come closest to the Earth on the night of Dec. 18 (around 6:46 p.m. EST). The planet is then 54,783,381 miles (88,165,305 kilometers) from Earth. It is at opposition – exactly opposite from the sun, with Earth in the middle – six days later, on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24.

The night that Mars will probably attract the most attention, from even those who don’t normally look up at the sky, will be on the night before Christmas Eve: Sunday, Dec. 23. That will be the night of a full moon, and Mars will serve as a companion to it all through that night. In fact, it will result in an exceptionally close approach between the two across much of the United States, while for parts of the Pacific Northwest, southern and western Canada and Europe, the moon will actually occult (hide) Mars.