I took some time off from my special Mars mission this year because… well, because I felt like blogging about some other stuff for a while. But I always intended to pick this up again where I left off.
The month of March seems like a pretty good time to do it. March is, after all, named in honor of Mars. Mars the god of war, obviously, rather than the planet… but still, March is now officially Mars Month here on Planet Pailly, and that feels right to me.
Planet Pailly 
Sounds good to me…
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Cool!
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I’m on!
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*in
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Glad to hear it!
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Not just Mars month but Mars year. Mars will be ridiculously close to Earth this summer at opposition, I believe less than 40 million miles.
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Oh cool! I did not know that. For telescopic observation purposes, how much do you think that will that improve our view of the planet?
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The views are going to be great. At last opposition in 2016, it was just a bit further away, and it was still very bright, rivaling Venus. This time it will be closer. You will be able to see the ice caps and Mara through any decent telescope.
https://apertureastronomy.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/mars-2018/
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Excellent! I’ve only seen Mars once with my telescope, and I felt kind of let down. It was just a very small, pink disk.
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Mars varies a lot in size due to the wild distance swings and its size. This is in contrast to Saturn and Jupiter which are easy to see whenever they are in a dark sky.
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Yeah, that fits with my experience. It’s very easy for me to see details on Jupiter and Saturn, but I’ve struggled with Mars.
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