Bad Astronomy from New York TV

New York City's channel 4 news talked about it (like everyone else),
but they got a couple of minor points wrong (probably like everyone
else). Not terribly bad, but the less misinformation, the better.

One person said that Mars is only 30 million miles from us (close
enough, i guess), but then went on to say that it's usually 60 million
miles away. Huh?? The only way i can figure 60 million miles is from
a least favorable opposition, but a least favorable opposition is
hardly "usual."

Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.

Really!?! I had no idea! All this time i was staying indoors on
overcast nights...

It wasn't all bad, of course. They did make what was perhaps the most
important point: Mars will be nearly as bright for the next several
weeks. Perhaps we might thank New York's bad weather for forcing them
to make that statement; it seems to me that a lot of people thought
the show would be over if they weren't outside at the moment of
closest approach.


Clear skies!

--
------------------- Richard Callwood III --------------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3N, 64.9W ~
~ eastern Massachusetts ~ USDA zone 6 (1992-95) ~
--------------- http://cac.uvi.edu/staff/rc3/ ---------------

Cousin Ricky wrote:


Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.

Really!?! I had no idea! All this time i was staying indoors on
overcast nights...



If you had a radio telescope, maybe. Is mars at all "visible" in the
radio spectrum
(not counting the space probes there)? Of course you'd need a VLA or a
Earth
planet wide network of radio telescopes to get decent resolution......

Cousin Ricky wrote:


Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.

Really!?! I had no idea! All this time i was staying indoors on
overcast nights...



If you had a radio telescope, maybe. Is mars at all "visible" in the
radio spectrum
(not counting the space probes there)? Of course you'd need a VLA or a
Earth
planet wide network of radio telescopes to get decent resolution......

(Cousin Ricky) wrote in message . com...
New York City's channel 4 news talked about it (like everyone else),
but they got a couple of minor points wrong (probably like everyone
else). Not terribly bad, but the less misinformation, the better.

[snip]

Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.


That's very funny. I wonder if it works that way during the daylight hours as well.

(Cousin Ricky) wrote in message . com...
New York City's channel 4 news talked about it (like everyone else),
but they got a couple of minor points wrong (probably like everyone
else). Not terribly bad, but the less misinformation, the better.

[snip]

Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.


That's very funny. I wonder if it works that way during the daylight hours as well.

Mr G on WPIX 11 TV in NYC just said on the 10 oclock news that Mars will be
only 60,000 miles away tonight !

Mr G on WPIX 11 TV in NYC just said on the 10 oclock news that Mars will be
only 60,000 miles away tonight !

In article ,
Esmail Bonakdarian wrote:

Cousin Ricky wrote:

New York City's channel 4 news talked about it (like everyone else),
but they got a couple of minor points wrong (probably like everyone
else). Not terribly bad, but the less misinformation, the better.

One person said that Mars is only 30 million miles from us (close
enough, i guess), but then went on to say that it's usually 60 million
miles away. Huh?? The only way i can figure 60 million miles is from
a least favorable opposition, but a least favorable opposition is
hardly "usual."

ABC World News had a nice animation of the Earth and Mars circling around
the sun and ending up at a distance of a mere 3.5 million miles.

One common error in the Swedish media is to give the distance as
56 million miles instead of million km. Now, a Swedish mile isn't a
mere 1.609 km -- instead it's 10 km (exactly). Thus our media sometimes
puts Mars at 10 times its actual distance, which is even larger than
its real maximum possible distance....

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

In article ,
Esmail Bonakdarian wrote:

Cousin Ricky wrote:

New York City's channel 4 news talked about it (like everyone else),
but they got a couple of minor points wrong (probably like everyone
else). Not terribly bad, but the less misinformation, the better.

One person said that Mars is only 30 million miles from us (close
enough, i guess), but then went on to say that it's usually 60 million
miles away. Huh?? The only way i can figure 60 million miles is from
a least favorable opposition, but a least favorable opposition is
hardly "usual."

ABC World News had a nice animation of the Earth and Mars circling around
the sun and ending up at a distance of a mere 3.5 million miles.

One common error in the Swedish media is to give the distance as
56 million miles instead of million km. Now, a Swedish mile isn't a
mere 1.609 km -- instead it's 10 km (exactly). Thus our media sometimes
puts Mars at 10 times its actual distance, which is even larger than
its real maximum possible distance....

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

"Cousin Ricky" wrote in message
om...

Then the weathercaster, the bearer of bad news for New York
astronomers, said that you wouldn't be able to see Mars through the
clouds with the naked eye or with binoculars. But a telescope might
do it.

Really!?! I had no idea! All this time i was staying indoors on
overcast nights...

I remember looking at Saturn under broken clouds one night for about 5
minutes. At the end of which I thought that the quality of image had
deteriorated a bit. Thinking it might be due to using the same eye for all
that time, I had a look at the sky and was gobsmacked to see that clouds had
rolled in and covered Saturn completely so that it was ionvisible to the
naked eye. It was still distinctly visible through the scope even a few
minutes later.

It taught me 2 things,
that you _can_ observe through clouds
that the eye/brain is remarkably insensitive to gradual change - I was aware
that the quality of the view had worsened, but I was completely unaware that
the image brightness had been reduced so much.