How to See Mars Opposition and Closest Approach to Earth | Hacker News Reader

How to See Mars Opposition and Closest Approach to Earth

nytimes.com

39 pointsdraenei21 comments

I'd advise to anyone living outside of city centers to step outside sometime when it is dark, and try to spot something in the sky. There is lots of things to spot!

You do not need a telescope, the naked eye is more than enough.

Not only the obvious ones like The Moon,Mars, Mercury and Jupiter can be seen, but you can see for example the ISS! Or any of the IRIDIUM satellites. Depending on the angle, they sometimes appear as quite a bright spot, streaking through the sky.

You can download one of multiple apps that tell you the time, expected path and expected brightness of these events, and then just step outside and watch.

Just try it sometime, I think you will like it.

There are also app that lets you point your phone at the stars/ planets and they will tell you the names etc. Google sky map is one that I can think of but I know there are others as well.

should make sure to get one that has a red filter too , so you don't ruin your dark adaptation in your eyes.

By red filter, do you mean something that keeps red and blocks the rest, or the other way around?

Applications suitable for usage at night will have a mode that draws everything in black and red. It's based on the phenomenon that red light still triggers the cones (color-sensitive receptors in our eyes), while not overwhelming the rods (light-sensitive receptors), letting us use illumination (in this case for information display) without ruining adaptation to low light.

(Works best with AMOLED screens, where black = no light.)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect#Use_of_red_lig....

I use one called SkyView.

Isn't Mercury too faint and too close to the Sun to see with naked eye?

Many times Mercury is too close to the Sun so it is lost in the glare next to it. Mercury is usually pretty bright because it is so close to the Sun and not that far from the Earth. Apparent brightness depends on size, albedo, and distances from Sun and Earth. Mercury is only a bit dimmer than Saturn now.

The larger the elongation of Mercury from the Sun (currently 20 degrees) and the closeness of other objects (Mercury is west of the star Regulus in Leo, the easier it is to see Mercury. Sometimes I use binoculars first. Once you know where to look, I can see Mercury with my unaided eyes.

It's not too faint. Whether or not it's too close to the sun depends on where it and the earth are in their orbits. When Mercury is at greatest elongation, it's quite visible, but you have you only view it just after sunset or before sunrise (depending on whether it's eastern or western elongation).

It's pretty bright, but usually appears too close to the Sun to be seen. It usually goes through 3-4 periods per year where it can be seen after sunset (and similar for periods before sunrise). You can use a planet rise and set chart to find periods when it will be most visible. Shameless plug [1] for an Android app I wrote that does this. Unfortunately we're just now leaving a period where it could be seen after sunset. You'll be able to see it before sunrise in lat Aug/Sep, or after sunset around late Oct/Nov. It will be easier to find if you use binoculars first, then try with the naked eye once you know where to look.

Another interesting thing now is that you can see Venus before the sun sets. If you've never seen it before, find the location one night well after sunset, then look in about the same place the next night a few minutes before sunset. It's currently getting closer to the sun, so it will get harder to spot before sunset each day, but will remain obvious in the night sky until late Sept.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.principiap...

Even in the city, you can see all of the naked eye planets, the ISS, and IRIDUM sats, plus a handful of bright stars. Everyone should look at the sky!

Re Iridium satellites: unfortunately, they are being replaced by a new generation of satellites which do not produce flares and thus likely won't be seen by the naked eye anymore. Source: https://heavens-above.com/IridiumDemise.aspx

Also, you don't need a 'shower' to catch view of awesome meteors. Often enough, the best burners are unanticipated, random objects.

After a few decades of nightly pondering as I gaze upward, I still sometimes anticipate a plane approaching when I see Venus rising/descending in the twilight hours.

Unfortunately for those with telescopes, there's been a planet-wide dust storm since middle of June that's made seeing any surface features difficult. It's related to it being a particular good opposition, since it's closer to the sun (and Earth) this time, the extra solar energy is contributing to the storm and it may take months to dissipate.

Observations from amateurs around the time the dust storm was going global: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/616612-2018-mars-oppositi...

Yea, that is unfortunate. I had a chance to take my 16" scope to a really dark site the other day and just saw a rusty disk with very little features :(

>It's related to it being a particular good opposition.

Actually, it's not. Mars reaches perihelion about every 2 Earth years without encountering a dust storm of this magnitude. It's also important to point out that the distance of a planet to the Sun usually does not have a great effect on the weather. Even though Mars has a more elliptical orbit than most, the difference in light received at its closest/furthest points to the Sun only accounts to about .7 times the light received from the Sun.

0.7 times sounds like a lot? If the Earth suddenly received 70% less light I think entire biomes would shift.

If you like looking at the night sky, you should add the New York Times' astronomical calendar to your Google calendar (link at the bottom of the article). They have all these astronomical events, so I don't miss out on them even if they don't hit the regular news cycle.

Thanks for pointing that out!

For folks who don't use google/ios stuff, they even provide a webcal ics (source[1]):

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/nytimes.com_89ai4i...

1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/science/astronomy-s...

Mars opposition and closest approach during a total lunar eclipse eh

That's a lot of red at once

I don't recall -ever- (which covers some time lemme tell ya) seeing Mars so big and bright as it is right now. Move over Jupiter!

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