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The Night Sky Podcast | Mars In Retrograde
Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of the night sky podcast. My name is Billy Newman. And I’m Marina Hansen. And this week, we’re going to be talking really just about Mars right now. It’s, it’s at its brightest, I think it’s for the next four days or so it’s going to be at its very brightest that that we’ll be able to see it. And that’s because we’re passing a point where Mars has been in opposition. And now it’s at its closest point, or I think it’s brightest pointer at its highest magnitude in the series. And so we thought that was a good point, to, to bring up and to talk about and to do kind of an episode that’s all about the motion of Mars that people have been seeing and that we’ve been observing through the night sky over the past month, and then what motion is going to continue for the next month school, how we can kind of forecast it, and how it’s so you know, lockstep and the amount of time that it takes to do these certain types of motions and patterns that have been observed for hundreds of years. 1000s of years now?
Yeah, it’s really interesting how we’re able to predict it really to the day. Yeah.
Yeah, it’s, it’s really, it’s really specific, the timing of these progressions, and they don’t seem to be that random. What I understand is, is Yeah, if you’ve been looking up in the night sky, and if you’ve been listening to us talk on and on about Mars is upcoming retrograde motion in the spring. I think we talked about it even our first episode, we have made it to that day in the year and it’s pretty exciting. Mars is at its very brightest. It was at its brightest last night, I think, at 2am. Or something might be what it says. But but effectively, what I understood is that really for for the whole week long period surrounding it, it’s effectively the same brightness.
That’s what I was reading also for the next week or so it’s supposed to be in about the same position.
Yeah, that’s that’s a bit of what I understood also. And it’s really exciting. So so on. June 20, is when Mars passed its point of opposition, which is when it would rise on the horizon line, as the sun is setting. Did I say June? Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m thinking in the future. Yeah, may 30. Was the date that Mars was at its brightest. May 20 was the date that Mars was the opposition to us. So it was like a little bit different. And I’m not sure quite how that goes. I think just because it’s in retrograde right now that the brightest, the brightest moment might be different than the point that it’s or the closest that minds will get to us and its path might be different than the point that it’s an opposition, right? I don’t totally understand that part of its motion. It’s kind of interesting. But it’s really exciting, though, we had a great time we offer Memorial Day weekend. And that’s a fortunate thing about this to see a lot of times maybe one of these retrograde motions might happen in the winter, you know, when it’s not really something that we can observe very well. But right now we have the very beginning of summertime, really in the Northwest. At the start of Memorial Day weekend, you can go out and you can look up into Scorpio. And technically Libra when we look at Mars, and see, you know, a really bright object in the sky that really out shines most of the things around it there Saturn right next to it, which is also quite bright, but Mars is definitely magnitudes more bright or more significant in the sky. And then Jupiter, you know, is a few constellations away, but it’s still really a strong element in that part of the sky.
is it’s amazing how bright Mars is. It really jumps out. Yeah, notice, and
it really lights the sky with all three of these planets, these bright planets up in the sky right now, when we were out in Eastern Oregon, we could really see how lit the sky was, and how much contrast or silhouetting we could see from the mountains in the distance. Yeah, it was really interesting. And if you were to imagine a real dark night, we wouldn’t really be able to see that sort of stuff that we can see as a contrast, just from the light cast in the sky by the stars, which I always think is really cool part of it.
Yeah, I thought it was really cool too, because we didn’t have the moon up for a long time. But it was very bright between or the after after sunset. And I got Yeah,
yeah, the moon. The moon has passed its full point. It’s gone back down to a new moon I think in the next few days. And I think it was coming up in Aquarius sometime around two or 3am. And so that means that we had really dark skies for the whole first segment of the night and in that location in Oregon, that dark sky is really great. A dark clear sky is just a really interesting thing out there because there’s so little light pollution that you can really make out so many more things are so many more fine details in the constellation Things that you’re not not able to see. Yeah, in, in like the light pollution of city limits,
it’s, it’s really very different, it’s actually hard, it’s hard if you’re used to looking at constellations from your city, there’s, there’s a lot less in the sky that you’re able to pick up on. And then I was really noticing it on our camping trip, there are just so many more layers that you can see of the stars, and there’s just a lot more in the constellation that you’re, then you’re really used to looking at or that I’m really used to looking at. Yeah, and you kind of have to refine yourself.
I think that’s really true. And it’s interesting. That is, I think as your your mind kind of creates the the familiarity of the shape or the landmark that you’re looking for. And you know that the conversation about light pollution is sort of interesting, too, because there are a few factors in it. And a few of them aren’t really based on light pollution, per se, but really more of atmospheric condition that you’re in, that keeps you from seeing that the bright crisps part of the stars, you know, I think about, about people living on the coast a lot or at low elevations sea level, let’s say, you really get dimmer stars, or a dimmer view of things in that area. I wish I’m not quite sure of the reason a lot of the time, but it isn’t always necessarily due to light pollution. But like what we get out in the mountains, when we’re really quite far away from a lot of things, then, then we’re able to see just how crisp and bright and dark that night sky can be. But I think over the ocean, or there’s just there’s too much water content. And I think you can get dimmer stars, especially at lower elevations. That’s why I think a lot of the observatories are put up high, sure, on top of mountains so that, that they’re able to get away from a lot of those atmospheric problems that that decrease the visibility of different stars, light pollution, definitely the number one part of that. But you know, even in a dark spot here in Eugene, you’re not going to be able to see the depth, or the the number of stars down into the low magnitudes, the distance that really dim stars that are difficult to find are the dim kind of fine features of constellations, those are going to be really hard to see unless you’re out somewhere as a Big Sky Country so that it’s real dark, flat and pretty dry above you so that you can get some clear, crisp air to do some observations under it was great. On Eastern Oregon, it was so fun to get to hang out there and watch the Milky Way rise up over the horizon line over the mountain in the east of us that was really cool. Watching Vega come up at sunset or watching it appear, I guess after Twilight kind of took over, it was up in the sky just a little bit. And I think at the time, like this is a cool part of you. Because you can see Vega and Arcturus and spike all at the same time, right sort of three of those seasonal stars that we talked about before that kind of earmark certain seasons coming on. So we see mega coming up in the the eastern sky kind of curling up out of the North East for us here. And we’re that’s kind of a marking, it’s a star that kind of indicates the oncoming change at the season into summertime. You know, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s a small thing like Arcturus bringing on the springtime or Capella bringing on fall, you know, as it starts to rise up in the late nights in the beginning of September and October, this seems to be kind of an indicator of you know, just the changing seasons.
Yeah, it’s really cool that they’re those little markers that you can look for, in the stars that kind of tell you a step changing.
Yeah, I think it’s really cool. I like that kind of progression of the year watching how things like that, you know, move on and change throughout the year. But as we were observing Mars out there, it was really cool. It was, I mean, really, just as right after the sun had gone down, you can easily see it and look out. And the interesting thing about observing planets, we might have talked about this. But the interesting thing about observing planets, and so you know, like we were just talking about with light pollution and, and atmospheric conditions, and how much moisture is in the air. This kind of is an interesting point. So you know, the twinkling that we see in stars. So you see stars twinkle, but the interesting thing is, you don’t see planets Twinkle, and there’s a reason for it. And it’s it’s fairly obvious, but the idea is that the star light is coming from light years and light years away. It’s really just a pinpoint of light that’s coming through. And it’s really uninterrupted. For millions of miles, trillions of miles, hundreds of light years, it’s able to transit across the universe to the earth, but as soon as it hits the Earth’s atmosphere, then it shakes those photons around. And that’s why we’re able to see sort of this shift, like when there’s ripples on top of water, and you’re looking at the rocks underneath how it sort of moves around a little bit on you. Yeah, it’s that same kind of idea. But just with the oxygen in our atmosphere. And so it moves the starlight around a little bit. And that’s why we observe it to Twinkle, as it kind of comes in and out, or gains and lessens itself. As it goes through what would basically be like a prison of oxygen or water. It’s really some kind of vapor. So that’s why we see stars twinkle, and we see stars twinkle more, when I don’t know if it would be the dew point is higher, or a humidity level is higher. But essentially, when we have more moisture and more water in the atmosphere, if I understand, right, and this moisture, I think is like what is causing the distortion as it moves over or hot and cold, hot and cold can change, just like the convection currents can also make those kind of changes. Like when you see heat waves rising. Have you ever seen that? The Shadows of heat waves rise rising against a wall or something? Yeah, summertime, seeing the heater in the morning? It’s a really yeah, it’s a weird effect, we can see that kind of convection change happening. And that convection change that movement of the air is enough to sort of move those photons around enough that we see these twinkling. And so if we do see twinkling stars what we were will excuse where we will not see it is in the planets. So when we look up to Mars in the night sky, or Saturn, or Jupiter, like we have up tonight, you won’t see those planets twinkle because that is actual reflected light from our Sun. So it’s a physical surface of light. That is that is receiving light from another source. Okay, does that make sense? So we’re actually looking at physical space, reflecting light instead of originally emitting the light from a really distant source.
That’s really interesting. I think I remember you explaining this to me. A little while back. And right. Yeah, it’s You’re right. Does it make sense? Yeah, it’s not I hadn’t really thought about it.
No, it is interesting. And that’s a that’s a way that if you’re not sure of if something is a planet or not, but I guess that’s a way that you can tell. I was gonna say a good way to test it. Yeah, yeah, sure. If you’re looking at Jupiter star, I think that’s one of the simple techniques to try and figure out if you’re looking at a planet or not, is, is to see if it’s twinkling, or not, like a lot of people confuse, let’s say serious, one of the bright stars, for Venus, or for one of the other things if it’s up in the morning or up in the evening, or just if people aren’t, aren’t aware of what Venus might be like, you know, but that star often for most people observing it won’t Twinkle, but if it is twinkling, it is interesting that that’s, you know, something that notes that it’s not a planet, it’s not reflecting physical light. But it’s just a point a light, light years away from us, transmitting it to us. That’s really a good starting tip. It’s a it’s an all right one, I think it works pretty well, it’s helped me out a few times to figure out what something was. So if it was if that was a plant, because he there’s been a lot of times where if, if you don’t have the internet as a constant resource for you to check your your facts, or check your positions on where something is not that it makes it too easy to do skywatching. But there is a more learned technique of understanding what planet is what, after a while of not seeing ways that you can, or I guess characteristics of the planet like Mars is really read, I might be a good way you can tell that from Venus, which seems to show up really green or yellow green in the sky and stays to a certain area. So there’s these characteristic differences between these planets that we can start to delineate what’s the planet, what’s not a planet, there’s been years ago, where, where Saturn wasn’t as bright and its representation in the night sky as it is right now, when it’s close to opposition, and it was much dimmer in the sky. And you really couldn’t identify it separate from the stars around it in a constellation, you know, clearly right? Like, it wasn’t obviously like, Wow, look at that. That’s sad. And yeah, so I guess, at the time, like, what we were able to do is sort of look around, and we were able to see just sort of by shape and characteristic of that object in the sky, that it wasn’t one of the stars that was there or that it wasn’t part of a constellation that I would remember being there. And you can kind of figure out by deduction that Saturn sure that’s not or that it’s Mars, sometimes diffused, I’m sure I have.
It’s really, it’s really interesting, noticing the little characteristics that you start to pick up on or become familiar with. I’ve noticed a lot just this year, I’ve I’ve really noticed the colors of the planets a lot more. Yeah. Which I did notice before I could tell that Mars was red. It was more red than the other ones. Yeah, but I, I just know it now. Right? And it’s really interesting how that starts to happen. But
yeah, there’s a level of familiarity that you can get over time, like mercury I think shows up pretty red in the sky and at some points in the year like maybe earlier this year in February when we had all five planets up at the same time and Mars Right now is very bright. But at that time, like we talked about earlier in the podcast, it was gaining in magnitude every day it was dropping to like a to negative 2.5 magnitude position, maybe that’s close to what it is now. Earlier in the year, it was really much dimmer. So it might be trickier to kind of tell Mercury and Mars apart. Because they both kind of show up red in the sky, but there’s just there’s ways to be able to do or there’s ways to discern, like which location how, how the planets are aligned, I guess a lot of that goes back to looking at a chart and trying to understand where things are. If you don’t keep up with it for a while, you could, you can look, I mean, you can lose some track of it. But it’s something that you can kind of look up and note and figure out what things are in the sky and, and you know what’s going on. But there’s some interesting stuff going on with Mars. It’s going it’s in retrograde right now. I thought that was a big thing that we should talk about it which is, which is pretty cool. It happens every two years. The fan
is reading to Yeah, we’ll see it again in 2018.
Yeah, it’s interesting. So do you remember this was interesting to me? I was thinking back to this. Do you remember? Back in 2014, two years ago, in the past from now, right? Do you remember when we were out in the alvord Desert, and we were looking out above Scorpios? It was starting to set in early September in the evening. But we could see Mars and Saturn out there. Do you remember that? Yeah. And so now we look at their position, which is also come back really quite close to where it was before. Do you remember? Yeah. Which is interesting. I’m really sad in his state and almost the same spot Saturn’s in, in pro grade right now? Well, in most ways, it’s, I think, at this moment, it’s in retrograde. But it’s a small position or retrograde. It’ll continue on its path, though. Moving back, from Virgo into Libra. And then now it’s in Scorpio, it’ll continue to move in prorate motion back to Sagittarius, and Capricorn and Aquarius, and then it’ll move through over the next many years, really,
I think it’s,
I think it’s 27 years, that’s probably not the same cycle for us. But, but I think that’s its orbital path, as it is, but it takes a period of time a couple years, though, for it to, to kind of move backward, and it’s positioned in the sky relative to what we see in the night. Back to the same position. So it was in, I think, Libra Last time, we saw it in 2014. And from that time, it’s really only moved back a small amount into into Scorpio where we see it tonight, right? Which is really interesting. And now we see Mars in Scorpio. And we see, yeah, the two of them together, we also see Mars in retrograde doing this, this motion. And what I thought was really interesting is that two years ago, and you’ll have to follow the dates with me a little bit. But two years ago, there’s a bit of a cycle that we can kind of see as it unravels. In 2014. The position of opposition from Mars was the date of like April 8, something like that. So it’s two years ago, and like a month and a half in the past, right. But now two years ago, and a month and a half into the future, we’re able to see Mars at opposition and in retrograde again, but now in Scorpio, so it’s moved from, I guess what must have been Virgo at the time. Yeah, probably something like Virgo back in April of 2014 when it was up and visible and in retrograde and opposition. Now it’s moved over to Scorpio where it’s doing that same cycle again. So, so I’m wondering, maybe it’s true, or we could predict that in now. It’s 2016. So 2018 in what would it be? July? That’s what it’s? Yeah, yeah. So like July of 2018. In July, then we’re gonna see Mars go through another period of retrograde and opposition, which is really cool. And that’ll probably be, I guess, out in the past Sagittarius and in the Capricorn. So that’ll be like a late summer. Yeah. Or, yeah, I guess late summer. Yeah. Or like
it goes into August. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading also that it’ll be brighter.
Really? Yeah. Interesting. He’s gonna be closer it. There’s a there’s a strange part of this where our orbits in the solar system are not circular. Yeah, they’re elliptical.
That’s really strange. I was trying. I forgot about that kind of I was trying to figure out how that works. Yeah, I guess we’ll just that’s where we’ll be on the shape.
Yeah. So so there is a significant difference between, you know, the closest part it can be and the cycle where it’s, you know, the furthest close pass that we can have. That’s why I think, if I remember right, that that 2003 2004 viewing of it as you I can’t remember. It was a long time ago. I think it must be 2004 probably. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That could have been that year, I was trying to remember I was pretty young. But I remember watching it. And I remember them saying that that would be the brightest viewing a Mars that we’d have for a number of years. And it was it was pretty cool. It was interesting to, you know, get to see it and look out at the night. But I think that was Yeah, the brightest and closest that it was going to be for a really long time. I think effectively right now, it’s about as bright as it could be. I think they said that the maximum magnitude that we could observe Mars at is a negative three magnitude, I think Venus gets to a negative for magnitude at sometimes. But and here’s the, here’s the thing about it, is that Venus will never be an opposition to us, will never be able to see Venus rise in the dark sky, and then stay up through midnight and 1am and 2am, through that really dark part of the night and have it rise overhead to a Zenith point, we’re always going to see Venus really quite low to the horizon Chasing the Sun, after Twilight, because more in the morning, yeah, cuz it’s between us because it’s between as close to the sun. And so we can see it at a brighter position, maybe, but we’re also going to see it in the twilight zone of the night sky. You know that 20 or 30 degrees above the horizon in the West, or the western sky, or if it were the morning 20 or 30 degrees, you know, above the horizon line in the morning, which is pretty cool. It’s interesting how it is, but it’s a little different, though. So it might look like Jupiter is really brighter, or might look like Mars is brighter, even though Venus can hit a higher objective magnitude. Yeah, it will appear brighter to us, because it’s going to be such a dark surrounding sky, it’s gonna be so separate from the sun coming up, that we’re not gonna have any light pollution from the sun as it were in this case, and we just have really dark skies to get to see it. So it’s kind of cool. It’s cool getting to see Mars right now. It’s really fun watching the retrograde motion. Yeah, it’s been really cool. Getting to watch it last couple months. Yeah, I had some dates about that. So it was like April 22. This year, that it started its retrograde motion. And you and I remember watching it when it was really getting quite close to Saturn there for a while. And so like when we were making those telescope observations of like when we looked at Saturn rings at one time. Yeah. And so Mars is really just right over from it for a while. And now that it’s in that retrograde motion, it’s pushing backward, it’s pushing westward, in the sky outs going back outside of Scorpio and in Libra. And I think now it’s technically in the position of Libra. Libra is a weird constellation. Thank goodness, we’re Scorpios or Scorpio yeses. Oh, what a dumb name. I don’t care about the International Astronomical Union stuff about that. I know it a Scorpio and it’s it’s a much better constellation is what I’m getting at them. Libra Libras, like four stars that aren’t named. There’s one of them this named I don’t remember what it is. Because it’s like a second or third magnitude thing. They needed something there to kind of select out what what’s going on in the sky. But But yeah, so Mars is in its past on the yacht. I think it’s the shuba is really close to the shoe about last week that one of those front stars in Scorpio, and it’s moved past the shuba and then out into Libra. Now, it’s going to continue doing that motion through the rest of the month. This retrograde motion, it’s going to be pushing out further into Libra up until I guess, was the you would said yeah, June 30. Is that right? Yeah, somewhere around June 30, July 1. And that period, that’s when Mars ends its retrograde motion and returns to prorate motion and then starts transiting backward through the constellations in the similar way that the sun does. I think that’s what it means retrograde versus program. So how do we sit there? So if we’re thinking about the constellations, and the zodiac signs, let’s say we have
we have Virgo in September, we have Libra in October, we have Scorpio in November and Sagittarius in December. Right. That’s the path that the sun is moving through in the sky and the path the sun is moving in pro great motion, let’s say. So this retrograde motion is as the planets are moving along that same path as Mars moves through Virgo, and then into Libra and then into Scorpio. It should move on in pro grade motion like the sun into Sagittarius the retrograde the term retrograde comes for when it moves in a reverse motion against the path of the sun would take And goes westward across the sky transits from Scorpio back into Libra, like it’s doing right now. And then it’ll kick back into procreate and continue on out into Sagittarius. I think by end of August, something like that. It’s gonna be cool to watch. Yeah, there’s gonna be a lot of motion that it does. Over the next couple months, I think it’s going to be, you know, pretty cool to see, I think, what is it like August? It looks like August 15 or 20th or so there’s going to be a cool alignment between Mars, Saturn, and then Terry’s in Scorpio. Oh, yeah, I think that I had read about that a little bit. Yeah, it seems like it’s gonna happen. That’s, that’s my guess. Or it seems like it’s about that time. Because currently right now, Saturn is in retrograde. And so it’s moving back in its orbit also, but really, its motion is much more subdued. So it’s going to stay its whole retrograde path is really just a few degrees over the next several months in the constellation of Scorpio. So right now, I think Saturn is a little bit closer toward the tail and a Scorpio. And it’s going to move a little closer up to the hardest Scorpio to Antares and then it’ll drop backward, and then move into Sagittarius, I don’t know, maybe sometime next year, or by the end of the year, but we’re gonna watch Mars, which is in Libra. Now, drop out of retrograde, and then move now back toward Saturn, and Antares. And we’re gonna see that all happen in the next 60 days or so.
So it’d be cool to see. Oh,
well, let’s see. I had a question. So we have the cycle for Mars that’s happening every two years? Yeah. Is it two years for Saturn also? Or is that on a different?
Oh, yeah. That’s a good question. So it is different for setting. And it’s different for Jupiter and Venus, and mercury. And I think it’s all distance. It’s all based on their orbital path, their motion, or when they come into opposition to us. So how would that be? I think that worse, we’re so similar. We’re on that two year pattern with Mars. I think because it’s just the next planet out from us. It has a chest similar year. For us like it’s it’s time to rotate or to revolve to make a revolution around the Sun is somewhere around 400 days, like foreign in five days, something like that. So it’s it’s a small increase percentage wise above what the earth is. Now for Jupiter, it’s like 12 years. For, for Saturn, it’s 29 years, I think, for Venus. It’s like 80 days. For mercury. It’s like 75 days. So there’s sort of these different pieces that are going to be part of the puzzle. Now the other part of the puzzle is the position of the earth. And that in that relationship too. So for retrograde to occur, like what we’re seeing with Mars, and why that occurs every two years for us, is because as we move around the sun, what’s happening is like if we were pulling up to Mars at a stoplight, so Mars is out there. And since we’re an interior planet from Mars, we’re closer that means that we spin around faster around the sun. And when we have a 365 day or a bit as like a 400, something they are a bit. So I guess it’s kind of obvious from that. And so what’s happening is, as the earth is behind in the orbit, let’s say further, further back, and Mars is ahead. And the circular motion around the sun that we’re going to make the earth is going to pull up right up against Mars, and then it’s going to outpace Mars, through its path and then move away from it. And so what we’re seeing is as we approach Mars as we get closer and closer, and then as both bodies are moving through the sky, that’s what causes this, this observed effect of Mars moving in a retrograde motion back westward in the sky against the constellations behind it. I think that’s because as time passes through us in the year, and how would I say, like, a month ago, Libra would have been an opposition. But now since it’s a month later, Scorpio is going to be an opposition. And so, so that’s why. So as we’ve moved further over, we’re gonna be looking back at Mars, like if we were looking back at a car that we pass on the road, and that’s why it’s moving back a little bit. And then it starts to move forward. In pro grade motion, it’s so strange to try and explain. It’s really fun, though.
Yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting concept to try to visualize.
But that cycle happens every two years, basically every two years in a month and a half or whatever. Whatever it ends up being. But yeah, there are there are periods where Mars does not get this bright, it will not be this bright, or it will be more bright in two and a half years. Right. I think that’s what I read. Yeah, I think right now I’ve seen another years where it’s really been much dimmer and doing its pro grade motion, but it’s really been, you know, just a small red.in the sky sure it’s really interesting that is or if, and let’s say like a year, it’s swung out, you know, to the far side from us, or it’s, it’s still, you know, on. It’s still in the night sky still on the far side from the sun from us. But it’ll it’ll really be quite farther away. And it’ll look really small and dim. Sometime Mars is one of the most variable planets as I consider it, I guess Saturn two, but for as bright as it is, it is right now. It can really be just one of the densest little points in the sky. Pretty Yeah, insignificant and small.
Yeah, it’s this is the brightest. I really remember seeing it. Yeah. I don’t remember the 2003 2004. I’m sure. I’m sure that I did see it. I’m sure that I would have observed it. But I don’t really remember it that well. Yeah, I’m not sure. This is definitely the brightest, I recall seeing it in last few years, I definitely have noticed it being a lot dimmer. So there is a lot of variation. And that’s interesting.
Yeah, there’s a lot of variation. And you know, there’s another part of it too, that I’m not really understanding completely. It seems like I if I remember right back in, back in like, 2003 2004 that that’s or maybe it was 2002. Man, I must have been a long time ago. I was trying to remember the last time that Mars was. That’s all right. I strive to remember the last time that Mars was in Scorpio during its retrograde or during its really bright passing to us, there seems to be some kind of cycle to that too, which I don’t really understand. But if I remember right, that that bright passing that happened in 2004 was in those summer constellations, it was in Scorpio or Sagittarius right in there. Maybe it was a Capricorn at that point. But But I remember it being in Scorpio, like for a whole summer just being really bright and present, you know, just dead center and Scorpio kind of similar to where it is right now. But that was maybe a decade ago, maybe 12 years ago. It’s been in deposition since that time, but it’s like we’re talking about been dimmer, or it’s been, you know, just at some other point in its cycle that we’re going through. So it’s kind of interesting to see these sort of specific things repeat themselves many years apart.
It’s really cool. It’s strange artist.
Yeah, it was pretty cool. But yeah, we had a great time being out in Hart mountain, and that antelope refuge area in Eastern Oregon, kind of near the Nevada border, where there’s really nothing out there. That’s where you can be 100 miles in every direction from a real town, or real light source. It’s going to be you know, an issue for you. But it’s really cool. Yeah, looking out and just seeing like one light or two lights. I think it was like 80 or 90 miles away in French Glen. That’s everything you can see out there. So it’s pretty fun. It was cool being out and and cool. Getting to do some observations of Mars while I was at its brightest point in retrograde. That was pretty cool.
Yeah, it was really cool. I’m so happy that we got to be out somewhere with a really good sky. Yeah, you can see it in town. But it’s really it’s different when you get to see
it is different. Yeah, it’s it’s really quite a show. Like out in the dark. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m really enjoying doing that. Yeah,
it was really fun during the observation side of it is definitely the best part of it was coupon at the telescope for a while. Looking at Mars through a telescope. It’s not that rewarding, though. I think we need a much bigger telescope.
Yeah, I think when we were looking through those thing, it seemed about as bright when I was just looking at Yeah,
that’s really true. That’s what happens when you look at stars too. Unless it’s like a feature or like a cluster or something.
Yeah, that’s what I noticed. I think like Saturn’s really cool to look out with a telescope because you can see it’s ring.
Yeah, and Jupiter. Now there’s something observable that Yeah, you can see the moon and the moons are great to see. That’s really funny. Yeah, yeah, you can make more moons on Saturn, too. If you have, I think a better telescope. You can see Titan and you can see a few others. I think you can see like, you can see five moons around Saturn. Wow, that’d be so cool. I want to upgrade our telescopes. We got to do it. Yeah, we got to get like a six inch fraktur. Something like that. I think that’s when you can that’s when you can start making better things on Mars to like the ice caps. You’re supposed to be able to see that. Yeah, if you look at you’re supposed to be able to make out sort of the white top of the planet, which we’re really not quite able to do. We’re not able to make Clear details out through what we’re looking at. Yeah. It’s read a little a little toy telescope. Yeah. A little toy. But it’s been pretty cool to use her to make some observations with it’s been fun. Camping telescope. It’s a great throw it back in the trucks gap. Yeah, I want something I can do that with. Yeah, that was cool. We got to see a lot of stuff out there this weekend, once the International Space Station go by?
I think only a couple of other times. Yeah. Yeah. It’s the brightest. I’ve seen it. And the longest I’ve seen it, I think.
Yeah, you know, it was cool, catching, I think even that second that we caught a view of the International Space Station going almost the same path? Yeah, yeah. And it’s kind of cool. It’s interesting how it goes, I’m not really sure that the pathway or the timing of it, you know, in its orbit, or like when it was supposed to pass by every night, or what location but really, that’s what you can tell, you can tell the difference between the International Space Station and other satellites just because of its motion. And its pattern where it’s coming from most satellites, almost every communication satellite that we’re going to see in the northwest here or over North America is going to be a north to south based satellite or a South to North Bay satellite, it’s going to be happening. I don’t know just kind of a little bit east of the zenith point in the sky, that’s where you’re going to see most things, but you really won’t see that many objects. Do a strange transit, like something from the southwest to the northeast, or sometimes you’ll see it from from the north, west, to the northeast, you’ll see it kind of move in all sorts of different directions. And it’s kind of an interesting thing about it. But that’s that’s the kind of the, the key feature that and then it’s significantly brighter, and more sustained than other satellite objects that we’re going to observe the other satellites, like we might see, I think we also saw flare as they pass that bright spot in the sun. So they get really bright, they get as bright as the International Space Station, but then they die off, or they get a lot dimmer. And that’s as they fall out of the sunlight out of the Twilight point there. And then back into the night where there’s no reflection to kick off of the solar panels that as to make a real bright, mirror look in the sky. It’s kind of cool, though. It’s interesting to see and to sort of figure out like, oh, that weird anomaly that we see is for this reason. It’s kind of cool. It is cool. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun observing that too. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess we’ll be back sometime this next week with a bunch of news about Saturn, and eights opposition’s coming up. And the observed observations that we can make of the rings, we should talk about that tilt pattern to the times, yeah, through the decade that we’re more able to see the rings versus times when we’re more on a flat plane with the rings, and we’re not able to see him an interesting effect. But we should talk about that. Coming up on the next episode of the night sky podcast. But hopefully, hopefully you guys are enjoying a few of the things that we’ve been talking about on the night sky podcast. If you have any suggestions for us. Please shoot us a comment night, the website’s night sky.io. If you want to subscribe, please go ahead and do that. leave us a review if you’d like to. I think shoot I think that’s just about everything right? You can follow me on twitter at at Billy Newman Marina, what’s your Twitter handle? or Instagram or whatever?
Marina rose Alice
I think that’d be cool. Yeah, we should put that sort of stuff in the podcast that we do too. But on behalf of Marina Hanson, my name is Billy Newman. And thank you very much for listening to this episode of the night sky podcast.