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Hi All,

Not sure if anyone else is aware of this, but a friend sent me this email regarding the planet Mars doing some kind of orbit thing where it is going to be the closest to Earth in a fair time. Anyhow I will copy the email below so you can take a look. I am guessing it is a genuine thing (be a bit red faced if its not), anyhow the email is below. If it is the case I`m guessing it will provide some good shots if it is indeed as it says...If anyone wants the actual email with the pics attached I am happy to send to you.



This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that
will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in
recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is
in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on
Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be
certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth
in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as
60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when
Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and
will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in
the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9
and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest
75-power magnification

Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.
Mars will be easy to spot. At the
beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m.
and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets are
closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its
highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty
convenient to see something that no human being has
seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at
the beginning of August to see Mars grow
progressively brighter and brighter throughout the
month.


Thanks Trevor

Is this northern or southern hemisphere

Wow! Thats frikin close. I wish I had a 300mm to get a decent shot. Ill b looking out for that red planet

Cool. I'll break out the 400 and strap on the 2x TC just to see what I get

I'm far from an astronomer, but being a scientist I do know a little about most science related stuff

...and I think this is BS. If it really were true it'd mess with our gravity like the moon does with the tide, only worse. It'd probably cause massive rising tides along the lines of the global warming predictions and I'm sure if that were the case and it's only a few weeks away we'd have heard about it in the media by now!

Shame though, it'd be a very cool sight to see!

That is absolute crap, think about it for a minute or 2. The moon is a max of 400,000 km from earth and has a size of half a degree. Mars is some 80 million km away from earth and has a size of 3.7 arc seconds, many times smaller than the moon. Mars is just over half as big as the earth, so if it were to be as big as the full moon, kiss your bum goodbye because it means we are all about to die as the planet is going to bump into us!!! It is not possible for mars to do this...if you want to photograph mars, you will need a telescope and a webcam..

Ha, that thing circulating again
Has been discussed here before http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?t=10834
The one in 2003 was indeed the closest encounter for 60,000 years, we won't be that close again until 2287
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/allabout/night ... -2003.html

Anything about strange gravitational anomalies and the end of the world is just hoo-ha.

If memory serves me correct, a full moon is typically about 1/2 a degree in diameter in the sky (average), which is would make it about 60 times wider than Mars at that opposition (assuming the 25.11 arc seconds figure is correct.. I think it actually is). So no, not the same size as a full moon

I tried to photograph Mars once through a 4.5" reflector using eyepiece projection and slide film.. and failed...

Yep, its the Mars hoax ...again
someone has even turned the hoax into a pps file so it can be emailed like spam... some people need to get a clue


Gordon

frink wrote:
If memory serves me correct, a full moon is typically about 1/2 a degree in diameter in the sky (average), which is would make it about 60 times wider than Mars at that opposition (assuming the 25.11 arc seconds figure is correct.. I think it actually is). So no, not the same size as a full moon

The original story was correct- Mars in a telescope at 75 magnification would look as large as the moon does to the naked eye when it was at opposition in 2003. It only looked slightly smaller at the 2001 and 2005 oppositions.
When the hoax was made up, the "through the telescope at 75X" was conveniently dropped, turning the story to a load of crap.

Gordon, who discovered another comet on Sunday

Gordon wrote:The original story was correct- Mars in a telescope at 75 magnification would look as large as the moon does to the naked eye when it was at opposition in 2003. It only looked slightly smaller at the 2001 and 2005 oppositions.
When the hoax was made up, the "through the telescope at 75X" was conveniently dropped, turning the story to a load of crap.

Gordon, who discovered another comet on Sunday

Yeh, that's what's so frustrating about those emails. Parts of them are accurate but the rest is rubbish.

What magnitude is your comet?

the latest one is m17... the one from about a month ago is a little brighter, should get to 13 or 14 in a few months, but heading way north.

Gordon

Cool. What a buzz that must be to discover a comet. Do you get a say in the naming of it?

The discoverer has no say, its named after the discoverer by the International Astronomical Union... except when you discover it and report it as an asteroid because it has no coma visible on your images, then its named after the survey. I've got a few like that too.

Gordon

NewbieD70 wrote: I am guessing it is a genuine thing (be a bit red faced if its not), anyhow the email is below.

<snipped loads of nonsense>

hey Trevor, are you going to post the red face pics for us? I beleive thats the rule for posting hoaxes on DSLRusers.com


Gordon

A mate sent me the same e-mail and we wondered if there was any truth to it,.

I expected Gordon would clear it up as he has, I just heard a Prof Fred ? from one of the observatories talking about it on the radio.

Apparently Mars is just about to go behind the Sun in the next few days so I guess I will need a bit more than my 70-300 d to get any good shots.
Cheers Rick

NewbieD70 wrote:The encounter will culminate on August 27th when
Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and
will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in
the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9
and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide.

On August 27th at 18:00h Mars will be 385,020,040 km from Earth, it will have an apparent magnitude of 1.8 and an angular size of 3.6 arc seconds.

So yes, it's a hoax.

By the end of August when the two planets are
closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its
highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty
convenient to see something that no human being has
seen in recorded history.

In Sydney, it will rise at 07:15h, transit at 13:07h and set at 18:59h.

All data courtesy of XEphem.

Cheers
Steffen.

It appears that the email - which is a hoax - actually includes some information which was correct in 2003 but is now outdated.

Mars and earth orbit the sun with different "years" (ie, one complete revolution). There will be times when the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun and are enormously far apart, and times when they are on the same side of the sun and therefore much closer together. Hence the distances can vary from hundreds of millions of miles to tens of millions of miles.

A couple of links for interest...

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/mars-earth-close.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005 ... rshoax.htm

Well looks like i got stitched up, not the first time and probably not the last...!!

thanks anyhow guys..