Hello all:

First; the eclipse was great. Our astronomy club co-hosted the event with the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, ID, USA. There were 140 people in attendance (amazes me on a school night, so many parents and kids) and between our club and the school we had eight telescopes, four 35MM cameras, one digital SLR, two color video cameras and recorded the event via standard VHS and MiniDV formats. From the MiniDV, we will be able to make still photos and possibly a video. We will most likely make DVD movies. These things take some time, so please bear with me and the group as we need to review what we have (six plus hours of tape) since we took images and video all night long. Once the images are up I will post something. I believe it will be a link to our main website.

Second; I want to thank Stretch for providing a "play-by-play" here. I had access to computers, but really did not think of it with the crowd and all. Thanks again.

Third; About Mars, the planet, not the Roman God. Bear with me on this one, please! I don't mean to offend anyone either.

For the last four years or so there has been an e-mail making the rounds again and again stating that MARS will be closet to the Earth. You have no doubt read the one that says that if you go outside on, or about August 27th and look at Mars, it’ll be as big as the Moon. Please repeat after me (of course raise your right hand) "Mars won't look as big as the Moon on August 27th." There you said it.

The close approach this email is discussing did happen back in 2003. It did indeed get closer than it had in at least 50,000 years, but this was a very small amount. On August 27th, 2003, Mars closed to a distance of only 55,758,006 kilometers (34,646,418 miles). The Moon, by comparison, orbits the Earth at a distance of only 385,000 km (240,000 miles). Mars was close, but it was still 144 times further away than the Moon. On August 27th of this year Mars will be about 180 million kilometers (over 100 million miles) away.

Today, or rather yesterday, is not the day that Mars will be closer to Earth just like every day isn’t. I hope that helps clear things up.

Take care,

Stargazer