What an astounding evening I had! Tonight the Moon passed REALLY close to the planet Mars at about 11:30 PM on the east coast. It was an absolutely spectacular sight! I have never seen anything like this in my life, to have these two magnificent objects so close to each other. The moon is only 1/2 a degree in diameter. Not even a full degree. So it is about 30 minutes in angular diameter. A degree is 60 minutes in angular diameter. The Moon passed by Mars within about 4 minutes of angle! Mars appears as a speck in this photograph, so click on the photo and you will see it in more detail.
This is a cropped version of the photograph above, and you can almost see some detail on the surface of Mars, and you can see for sure that Mars is orange in color. A group of my friends were also out photographing this "conjunction" tonight, some in NYC and some on Long Island. We were texting each other so that gave us a connection as we photographed this scene together.
6 comments:
Ken, I love the photos! I was under the impression that the moon would pass in front of Mars and block it from view. It has been touted as a ‘cold moon with Mars in retrograde’. Not sure what anynof this means except that I should (as should all of us), watch out for ‘things happening’ in the future, with all that aside, I really enjoyed looking at this phenomenon and appreciated your photos.
Great photos. I didn't notice the night sky last night but after seeing the photo, I went outside at 5:15am to look and saw the most beautiful moon and Mars close by. It definitely was spectacular! Trace
Spectacular photo.
Joan
A spectacular sight! I was very lucky to have seen how close Mars was to the Full Moon last night before some clouds moved in. And early this morning I saw the full moon low in the sky before fading from sight over the horizon.
Ron: A friend of mind flew to Arizona so that he could see the Moon "occult" Mars. So perhaps where you are, the Moon did cover Mars for part of the time. I just used my planetarium program, and where you are, the Moon did occult Mars! Thanks for the kind words about my photographs.
Fantastic photo! How exciting to see how close Mars is to the Moon. Sounds like everyone really enjoyed the view. I love seeing a bright moon in a clear sky but didn't realize that Mars was so close...betsey
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