Steve Bevan's Night Skies

Lunar Eclipse August 28th

Picture Credit:  NASA

Are you an early riser?  Take a look at the moon as it sets in the west tomorrow morning.  Starting at about 4:51 AM, the Moon will enter Earth's shadow, reaching total eclipse at 5:52 AM.  The red colour you see during an eclipse of the Moon is due to the light of sunrises and sunsets on the Earth which manage to refract around our atmosphere and continue to the moon.  Unlike an eclipse of the sun, an eclipse of the moon is safe to view with the naked eye.

Those of us on the eastern side of North America will not get the best view this time.  This event happens while our sun is rising.  For the best show, you need to be living in the pacific.

Incredible Mars Event in August 2007....NOT!!!!

Image Credit:  NASA JPL

There's a notice floating around the internet right now describing an incredible event involving the planet Mars later this month.  Unfortunately, this information is wrong. 

In August of 2003, the planet Mars was in a particularily close alignment with Earth.  It does this every 26 months but in 2003 the red planet was marginally closer.  It appeared as an orange-red star and was quite bright.  At that time, someone took the information, made a mistake regarding the apparent size -no where near "Full Moon" proportions- and posted a well-meaning but inaccurate story about what people would see.  Every year since 2003 we see this notice.  It's still wrong.

If you have a telescope and want to see Mars in its most favorable position in 2007 you will be well rewarded at Christmas time.  At its best, under modest magnification on your telescope you will be able to see detail on the surface of Mars and maybe even a polar ice cap.  The detail will be no where near what you see in the picture above but then again, that's why we spend the money and send robotic probes there.  This picture by the Viking probe shows the deep canyon known as Vallis Marineras.  If this giant feature was here on Earth, it would stretch from one side of North America to the other.

Now that's incredible.