You don't want to miss Mars shining bright this fall

[Judi Lynn]

By Joe Rao 10 hours ago



A view of Mars on Sept. 6, 2020, as seen from New York, showing Syrtis Major, Sabaeus Sinus and Hellas.
(Image: © Frank Melillo)

Mars is lighting up the night sky as the planet heads toward an unusually close approach to Earth on Oct. 6.

If you look low in the eastern sky on any clear evening this week, soon after darkness falls, you'll see a fiery, pumpkin-hued "star" blazing brilliantly. Despite the "Red Planet" moniker, the weeks surrounding Mars' close approach are a perfect time to appreciate the planet's true hue, a yellowish orange, the color of a dry desert under a high sun — which is exactly what you're looking at.

Astronomers use a scale called magnitude to rate the brightness of celestial objects and these days, Mars is shining at an eye-popping magnitude of -2.6. The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object, with stars on the threshold of naked-eye visibility classed as sixth magnitude. The most brilliant objects in the sky have negative magnitudes: Sirius, the brightest star, shines at magnitude -1.4, Venus can peak at -4.8, the full moon is -12.7 and the sun blazes at -26.7.

A topaz beacon
Throughout most of October, Mars and its topaz glow shine brighter than any other object in its region of the sky, except, however, on those nights when the moon is nearby (such as on Oct. 2 and Oct. 29).

More:
https://www.space.com/mars-skywatching-at-opposition-fall-2020?utm_source=notification

[ZZenith]

1. I noticed it was super bright red last night

and just assumed the smoke from the west coast had reached it already.

[progree]

2. To see a map of the sky from one's locale (you can change the time)

https://in-the-sky.org/skymap2.php

(get rid of that deep space junk with that checkbox below the sky map and on the left side -- nobody can see any of that stuff unless they live 50 miles from the nearest street lamp, so its just clutter)

Someone else recommends https://stellarium-web.org/     but I haven't gotten used to it yet.

At about 8 pm one can see Jupiter (very bright) and Saturn close to it in the middle of the southern sky

At about 9 pm and after when one can see Mars rising on the eastern horizon. The nearly full moon rises a little before then, so that's cool, but it does make Mars look less bright.

On October 2, the moon and Mars will be VERY close together.

Times are approximate depending on where one is located relative to the defining meridian for their time zone. That first link above should give you the correct sky for your time and location.