Viewing Mars from the roof of the College Parking Garage

Mars viewing on the roof of the College Parking Garage at Fenton and King Street at 8 P.M., October on Monday 17,  Tuesday ?, Wednesday ?, Thursday ?, and Friday ?, or a program about Mars in the planetarium if it is cloudy.  Mars will be around 20 arcseconds in diameter on all the opportunities to see it through a telescope on the roof of the College Parking Garage.  At 9 P.M. Mars will be too low in the sky to see from outside the planetarium, but it will be visible from the roof of the Parking Garage a little south of east as it rises higher.  Hopefully the entire events around 8 P.M. will not be cloudy.  The view of Mars will be similar to what is available every 2  years and 2 months.  Mars (a superior planet, further away form the Sun than Earth) is in opposition.  So it will be bright, visual magnitude -2.9 and with as large of an angular diameter as it ever gets.

On Wednesday, August 27, at 9:51 UT  = 5:51 A.M. EDT, Mars is as close to earth (55,758,006 km or 3.1 light minutes) as it has been since 57,617 BC, when Mars was a little closer at 55,718,000 km.  It will be slightly closer again in 2287.  These facts makes this opposition of Mars near it perihelion,  something that happens only a few times in a human life time unique within many millennium and many human life times.   The view of Mars though will not be noticeably different than what is available every 15 to 17 years.  Transparency of the sky and seeing through the Earth's atmosphere, and the weather on Mars, whether dust storms in Mar's atmospheres will obscure our view of the surface mottling will effect what we see.  Do not expect spacecraft views,  Mars is still very far away, and its small angular size (about half of Jupiter's size) makes Mars disappointing by comparison.   But this is your chance to see the real thing with your warm human eyes real photons that have bounced off of the surface of Mars and arrived at the Earth after leaving the Sun 14.5 minutes ago.  

Putting these angular changes of Mars in some time perspective
Date
 Angular diameter in arcseconds
 Comment
59,617 BC
 25.13
 the 15 to 17 year exceptionally good Mars cycle, stand out in that cycle
August 1971
 24.9
 the 15 to 17 year exceptionally good Mars cycle, one before last
September 1988
 23.8
 the 15 to 17 year exceptionally good Mars cycle, last one
June 2001
 20.8
 around this good ever 2 years and 2 months cycle, typical
August 27, 2003
 25.11
 the 15 to 17 year exceptionally good Mars cycle, stand out in that cycle
August 28, 2287
 25.14
 the 15 to 17 year exceptionally good Mars cycle, stand out in that cycle
Mapquest map to the Montgomery College at Takoma Park, Parking Garage on the corner of Fenton and King streets with entrance on King Street and exit on Fenton Street.

Mars Exploration Rover Missions Spirit at Gusev crater and Opportunity at Meridiani.

Montgomery College's Planetarium home page

Web page by Dr. Harold Alden Williams.
Last changed July 19, 2005.