Look to the southern sky at dusk on 12 January to see the 6-day-old waxing crescent Moon just 6½ degrees below magnitude +0.6 Mars in the constellation of Pisces. If you own wide-angle 7× or 8× binoculars, you can see the pair in the same field of view. Note that the Moon’s apparent size has been enlarged for clarity in this illustration. AN graphic by Ade Ashford.Observers in the British Isles and Western Europe looking up at the waxing lunar crescent around nautical dusk (some 1½ hours after sunset in the UK) on Saturday, 12 January will notice that the Moon is not alone – an orange-coloured magnitude +0.6 ‘star’ lies less than a span of a fist at arm’s length above it. This bright interloper in the otherwise modest stars of the constellation of Pisces is none other than Mars.
Some 24 weeks after its close opposition of 2018, the Red Planet presently lies almost 204 million kilometres from Earth, hence its tiny gibbous disc spans just 6.9 arcseconds. Not surprisingly, little in the way of martian surface detail will be evident except in large backyard instruments.
Our Moon has half the physical diameter of Mars, but the Red Planet appears so much smaller since it lies more than 500 times farther away this night. In fact, you need a telescope magnifying in excess of 260× to enlarge Mars to the same apparent size as the adjacent Moon appears to the unaided eye on 12 January.
Although thick cloud in parts of Indonesia spoiled the view for some along the path of totality, tens of millions more were greeted to spectacular views of the 9 March total solar eclipse. NASA, in partnership with the Exploratorium Science Center, hosted live coverage of the event from the coral island of Woleai in the Pacific Ocean.
Skywatchers in the UK and Western Europe should cast their gaze low in the southern sky late into the evening of Thursday 6 July to see the 12-day-old waxing gibbous Moon in conjunction with ringed planet Saturn. The pair are separated by just 3½ degrees, nicely framed in a typical 10×50 binocular. For telescope users, the night of 6—7 July is also good for spotting Saturn’s bright moons. We show you what to look for and where.
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity passed near a young crater this spring during the 45th anniversary of Apollo 16’s trip to Earth’s moon, prompting a connection between two missions.
