- - text and links as of last publication / le texte et les liens en l'état lors de la dernière publication - -

Mars Opposition 2007-2008

That Mars opposition was unfolding partly on 2007 and 2008. The 'opposition', for a planet beyond the Earth, is when the relative motion of the Earth and the planet on their respective orbit, place them at their nearest, on the same side of the Sun. This moment is the best for the observation of a given planet as the planet, at the opposition, is at its largest apparent diameter, its brightest and as it rises at sunset, being observable all night long. for more about the remarkable positions of the planets, see our tutorial Planets Apparent Motion. This, for Mars, is occurring about each two years, allowing Mars afficionados for the best observations of the Red Planet. Mars opposition, this time, was occurring along 2007-2008, with the opposition greatest by the end of 2007. The 2007-2008 opposition is not a perihelic one this time, which means that the Red Planet won't reach those dramatic apparent diameters we saw during those last years. At the moment of its opposition, by late December 2007, Mars reached 15.8"and the -1.6th magnitude

At the time of the opposition, Mars was in Gemini, the Twins as Mars was very well placed, high all night, in the northern hemisphere, being prone for great observations. The same at the equator, as Mars was to be lower in the southern hemisphere, about 34° above the horizon at its highest of the night

Mars Apparent Diameter and Magnitude For Its 2007-2008 Opposition

Date	6/12	8/28	10/5	10/30	11/19	11/30	12/16-22	1/6	1/16	2/1	2/20	3/15	4/23
Apparent Diameter (in ")	6	8	10	12	14	15	15.9	15	14	12	10	8	6
Magnitude	0.8	0.3	- 0.1	- 0.6	- 1.0	- 1.3	- 1.6	- 1.4	- 1.1	- 0.6	- 0.1	0.5	1.1
data for 00:00 UT, geocentric. data with Cartes du Ciel, Patrick Chevalley

see the whole of the data for Mars for the years 2007 and 2008