Moon and Mars, January 29, 2010

If you had clear skies last night, the gorgeousity of the Moon and Mars probably greeted you as you stepped outside and looked up. It’s tough to take an image of such a sight — but I gave it the old college try anyway, using my Canon Vixia HD video camera. This is the result.  Of course, the Moon was so much brighter than Mars that I expected it would wash out the scene and I’d miss Mars completely. In the real sky, the Moon was bright and Mars was a little red dot next to it. I messed with my settings a bit and snapped this view. Mars shows up as a little red disk next to the Moon (which really doesn’t have rays).

Did you go out to see Mars last night?  Or Jupiter in the west (not long after sunset)?  Will you go out tonight?  If you do, check out Mars:  a world where our robot explorers are still roaming about and/or returning good science to teach us more about this desolate red world.