[vox] [fwd] [OT] Snuggling Up to Mars

[Bill Kendrick]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 10:54:54PM -0700, Lincoln Peters wrote:
> Somewhat more on-topic:
> 
> If you're not sure where to look for Mars in the night sky, you can find out 
> using KStars.  You can tell it your location, which celestial body to focus 
> on, etc., and then you've got a much better idea of where it is.

That's exactly how I did it the other night.  In fact, since KStars isn't
installed on my wife's laptop, I ran ssh -X to my box upstairs and
launched it.  It ran _amazingly_ fast, for going over a network!  (100Mb)


Anyway, if you've never seen Kstars, to get it!  (Debian users can just
apt-get install, I think...  I'm running KDE3, so you _might_ need to find
a backport)


> In the case of Mars, right now in Santa Rosa, it is a bright object to the 
> right of the moon.  And the moon is easy enough to spot.

Yeah, it's been fun to watch the little speck move more and more right-wards
(relative to the moon) over the last few days.  I need to get ahold of
a telescope soon...  my fuzzy eyes + binoculars doesn't really cut it. ;)

-bill!