I would like thank the group for the great trip to Lowell. Kim and David were very gracious and fun to view with. Seeing was great and I'm sure, but I think I just might have seen Patrick, or someone who looked just like him on Mars. Wayne -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Richard Tenney Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 4:46 PM To: Visit http://www.utahastronomy.com for the photo gallery. Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Mars comments Aw Brent, you're such a killjoy! Of course you are technically correct, but all the hype adds to the flavor of the moment, and it sure has kindled a lot of interest in the community like hyped events (e.g., comets Halley, Hale-Bopp, Hyakutake, Kohutek, etc.) often do. I've had more people sign up on the UVAA web page in the past couple of weeks than I typically get in a year. Granted, many of these are simply following the hype, and will likely "apostatize from the faith" before long, but also for many of them it's just the first step on the long journey towards true photon addiction! And to tell you the truth, I myself had never made a serious observation of mars prior to this year, out of sheer ignorance. Previously I had always only seen a featureless orange blob swimming in atmospheric soup, always with too low power, etc., not realizing what it takes to get a good image, never believing Mars would ever reveal much detail to amateur scopes. It wasn't until ALCON last summer in fact that I learned otherwise from some of the ALPO attendees that were eagerly and vocally anticipating this year's opposition. So, while true it's mostly all hype, hype can be a good thing! :-) -Rich --- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
Are we not making more out of this than there really is? Certainly, Mars is closer than it has been, but only by a small amount. We have the chance to see Mars at a somewhat similar distance roughly every fifteen years. Of the perihelic oppositions of Mars, 23 August 1923, 10 September 1956, and 10 August 1971 have all been within 0.3 seconds of arc of this latest opposition. This is only 1.2% smaller than the current opposition! Not much when you talk about observing visually. The difference between this opposition and the 1923 opposition requires at least 4 significant figures to differentiate. (That is less than 0.1%, and more like 0.05%)
The opposition in 2018 will be .386 a.u., and the opposition in 2035 will be .382 a.u. as compared to this one at .376 a.u. The angular size will be 24.1 and 24.5 seconds of arc compared to our 25.1. You won't see much difference there.
I enjoy looking at Mars as well as the next guy, but I think the emphasis on this being the closest oposition in 60,000 years is at best overstatement, and at worst misleading. http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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