Mars viewing is at its best!

Yesterday, December 18th Mars reached its closest approach to Earth, and 6 days later, on December 24th is Mars Opposition. This year Mars is 55 million miles from Earth at closest approach. This month and next month too both offer outstanding views of Mars, but by late January Earth pulls away from Mars and the best viewing window ends in mid-February. So we've added some extra sidewalk astronomy viewing nights to the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers schedule. We may add more, too, so keep looking for these little notes from us. Join us, weather permitting, in Pasadena, on Colorado Blvd somewhere between Fair Oaks and Pasadena Avenues Friday night December 21 and Saturday night at Monrovia's Library Park at Myrtle and Lime Streets (less room for the next 2 years due to library construction fencing). The current forecast calls for mostly clear both Friday and Saturday nights. Do check out website for any weather changes. If the mostly clear conditions change to mostly cloudy, we would probably cancel and reschedule. Expect cold temperatures (high 30's/low 40's) this weekend - it'll be even colder - in the 20's on Mt. Wilson! Both of these events will get started a little later so we can show Mars higher in the sky. Plan on telescope viewing from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. We probably will not arrive until then. By 9:00 p.m. we may be too cold to continue. Our Sidewalk Astronomers founder, John Dobson, is fond of saying "many are cold, but few are frozen". :-) Each Mars opposition, Zolt Levay from the Space Telescope Science Institute updates the excellent Hubble telescope "Mars close encounters comparison chart ". And he updated it just today. I hope you enjoy it - it really helps to show the apparent size of Mars each year. http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2007/45/images/i/formats/print.jpg JPL has a Mars Opposition feature today too, it's great, especially the Mars Rotation video, and a link to the monthly What's Up Video. :-) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1560 I hope to see you on the chilly sidewalk this weekend. We only see our red neighbor on its approach to Earth every two years, and Mars won't be this close to Earth again until 2016. I'll be handing out some very special NASA Mars lithographs this weekend, while the supplies last. Want more Mars? Visit my Mars page: http://www.otastro.org/Mars2005/ Finally, speaking of John Dobson, you might enjoy listening to astronomer Bob Cesarone's song about John Dobson, called "Telescope Man". Bob's band, Northern Cross recorded the song a couple years ago, and he gave a copy of it to John (and to us) late last year. http://photo.whiteoaks.com/telescope-man.mp3 Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Senior Outreach Specialist, Cassini Program JPL - 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 230-205 Pasadena, CA 91109 818-393-6435 jane.h.jones(a)jpl.nasa.gov Cassini SOC http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm What's Up? http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/amateurastronomy/index.html