Mars in daylight

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to observe
Mars in a bright blue sky. I've never seen that
before.

About 15 minutes before sunrise, the sky was not
full light, but a beautiful pale blue with plenty
of light, and orangy sunrisey colors in the east.
I was observing the Moon naked eye, and realized I could
also see Mars as a bright starlike point a few
degrees below and to the right of the Moon (that's
southwest, right?). I didn't realize it would be
that bright.

I wasn't able to stay out continously to track when
Mars faded into the skylight, though it was invisible
an hour later. (The Moon, of course, was still visible.)

The Moon and Mars were the only two bodies visible,
so I wasn't able to compare magnitudes against known
star magnitudes. I judged the sky to be brighter
than when Jupiter first becomes visible in evening
twilight, so that means Mars is a brighter magnitude
than Jupiter at the moment. Venus is never visible
above the trees at my location, so I don't know how
bright the sky is when Venus appears for comparison.
I also don't know how to judge the absolute brightness
of the sky, but there was plenty of light to read
the morning newspaper, which arrived while I was
outside.

In that amount of light I could see no color in Mars.
It was a pretty and pleasing surprise combination.

In my quiet rural setting, far from cities, I often
get frustrated with my magnitude 1 or 2 NELM.
(There's a highway nearby with a cluster of burger
joints and gas stations that were not there when I
moved out here.) It's nice to know I can at least
count on the daytime sky being dark enough to see
some pretty and pleasing surprise combinations.

--
Glenn Holliday holliday@xxxxxxx

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