From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 09:13:21 MDT
Mars-
As many might already be aware, Mars is in the news. I should have
been forewarned, Sky and Telescope has been publishing articles
all year, but I got behind in my S&T reading this year.
I went out last Friday night though: the Italian Amateur Astronomy Association
had telescopes set up at Castel d'Angelo in Rome.
http://www.eurosnaps.com/images/Roma/CastelloPA164906.jpg
The sky seeing was hazy, awful really, and the only objects visible,
were, in fact, the Moon and Mars. That was OK, though, because those
were the two objects at which the telescopes were aimed.
The Italian group advertised their star party in the newspapers
(they will have more this month, all over Italy), and I was thrilled
to see ~100 people waiting to look through the scopes. So much
interest for the Red Planet! The kids were especially fun to watch.
It has been more than ten years since I've seen Mars through a telescope.
I could see a bright polar cap and some color discolorations over
the surface, even in the bad seeing conditions.
Go take a look! It is part of the solar neighborhood, in which you live.
Mars is near, the closest in 60 000 years:
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_970_1.asp
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/mars_2003_press.html
http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/mars.html
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Aug 18 2003 - 09:24:47 MDT
