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Runaway Mars


alan potts

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It is only a couple of weeks back that I posted on the Mars and Antares conjuction though in the end it was not as close as I thought it would be, though nice nonetheless. Antares has now almost disappeared from my sky being only visible for short time but then I have to take a walk so I can see around trees but the hill it goes down behind stays put. Mars on the other hand has raced away from Alpha Scorpius at an alarming rate, I never realised it moved so fast. The red planet was visible a good hour after it was fully dark where as Antares was long gone.

Alan

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Mars seems to spend a lot of time "sub-optimally visible", ie only visible for part of a night or only low down in twilight. It goes more than 2 years between oppositions but moves fast enough that it doesn't spend a lot of time invisibly close to the sun. We're seeing a good example now, it was in Virgo in the spring but as the sun moved into that constellation Mars shifted into Libra, Scorpius and onwards and the sun is having a hard time "catching" it. Saturn though is stuck in Libra and has been "caught", but it will reach opposition again next year.

It's strange how at British latitudes Venus seems to go years without a really good apparition. Its synodic period is only 583 days and sidereal period just 225, yet so many elongations are wasted because of the angle of the ecliptic to the horizon. There hasn't been a good evening apparition since Feb/March 2012- it was briefly visible in the evening towards the end of last year but only low in the twilight.

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