"The brightest and closest it's been for many years" ?

[chiltonstar]

"The brightest and closest it's been for many years"  - surely not (S@N)!

Chris

[Kropster]

Many = more than one, perhaps?

[crashtestdummy]

Give us a clue.

[Pete Presland]

light pollution  

[Luke]

The Sun?

[alan potts]

Lost me as well, though that is not too difficult.

Alan

[chiltonstar]

Give us a clue.

Opening lines from S@N this week from M-A-P, re Mars.

Chris

[Steve Ward]

It's the closest it's been for six years actually ... 

[John]

I guess "slightly closer and brighter than last time" is not an attention grabbing headline 

[Kropster]

Journalists like to 'big it up'.... gives them a good headline.

[jonathan]

And this revelation makes a jot of difference to whom, exactly?  Still can't see it properly through the wibbly wobbly atmospheric sky conditions here.

[Pete Presland]

this simulation image shows difference, nothing we can do about conditions but it does help to have a nice size disc if and when they do improve.

[Peter Drew]

Closest, brightest and LOWEST. 

[Pete Presland]

at least it is quite a bit higher than Saturn

[clarkpm4242]

Mars did look excellent at about 30 deg. altitude around 23:00 last night.  Using a TMB 92mm APO at ~ x195.

[chiltonstar]

It looked pretty good tonight as well at x250, with bags of detail and a very sharp disk outline - I was just objecting to the hyperbole in the line from S@N. Keep hyperbole for the likes of footy and MasterChef pl, not science.

Chris

[trynda1701]

We need to enjoy this opposition, as the next couple being further south in declination mean that we'll get poor views here in the UK.

Here's the important figures for this years and the next three...

2014 Apr 8, RA 13h 14m, Dec -05dg 08m, Disc 15.1"

2016 May 22, RA 15h 58m, Dec -21dg 39m, Disc 18.4"

2018 Jul 27, RA 20h 33m, Dec -25dg 30m, Disc 24.1"

2020 Oct 13, RA 01h 22m, Dec +05dg 26m, Disc 22.3"

(Checked these are correct via Stellarium.)

Therefore although the next two are getting bigger, the southerly declination works against us here in the UK. So the 2020 opposition, in Pisces, looks better than this year in comparison.

Mark

[Laurie61]

Yes, Mars is making a quick exit and will be away for years, the low (UK) oppositions in 16 and 18 are also during the lighter/summer nights