Mercury "closes in" on Mars

Event Date: February 3rd

Time: 6:00 PM

Brief

   A few days ago, I mentioned the Mercury/Mars encounter, which is soon to happen.  Although these planets are about 98.3 million miles apart right now (not much more than us from the Sun at aphelion), they are seen as binocular friendly, in atmospheric pollution; a little more than 4º separated.  Don't expect to see any features on Mars, which we have separated to 214 million miles from; about 3 times further than it's average opposition distance.  Mercury, although much brighter than Mars in apparent magnitude, is featureless as seen from even powerful telescopes from Earth.  We can enjoy it catching up with Mars, moving west to east against the stars, shown below

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Detailed

  For Mercury, on the apparent magnitude scale, it is a little more than 8 times brighter than Mars, with apparent magnitudes -1.10 compared to +1.17 respectively, based on the magnitude logarithmic calculation.  Since the magnitude difference of the two are 2.27, when added together, using the logarithmic formula for 100, this precisely calculates to the aforementioned 8.  Anyway, I just thought to throw that in there!

As for the separation of the two, try viewing them through medium power binoculars, of about 7º in field.  The second image shows them this way, low in the sky, a bit south of west.

click on images to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

As the next week passes, the view of the two changes from binocular friendly to telescope small-field friendly!  Can you guess yet how close they will pass at conjunction, even though I left the orbits out of the first image?  If you can follow Mercury's direction in the sky as it separates from the Sun, that can be a way to guess, since Mars is moving gradually towards the Sun, and shrinking slowly in separation.