Hi all,

I'm still an amateur amateur at star-gazing, but I find it delightful fun (just saw a bunch of Messier objects at the local observatory the other night - how cool!). Anyway, since Mars is so close right now, I've taken a bit of interest in it.

I was curious if anyone knows of a site or a program (preferably free or cheap, and downloadable) which shows where Mars will be at any given time on any given night (like this month). What I mean is where in the constellations will one find it. I think it's going through Aquarius right now, toward Capricorn, but I sometimes still have trouble finding these constellations (bad seeing conditions + no money for a telescope yet), so I'm hoping to find a program that'll plot it's daily position (say at 11:00pm) over time so I can watch how it moves through the constellations and get a better understanding of this stuff. When I go out to look up at the sky, it's hard to keep things straight (guess it just takes time to get familiar with the sky), so a program or site as described would be of incalculable help to someone like me.

Thanks!


[Edited to correct atrocious typo]

Try here:

http://www.heavens-above.com/

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
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hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Wowsers, talk about a quick reply. Thank you very much! This seems to be what I was looking for. I entered my location, clicked on planets, clicked on Mars and sure enough I get a nice (if cluttered) picture of Aquarius with Mars' current position.

Now to hike up to the observatory (the only dark place around campus...) and try to match the sky up to the picture.

Really, thank you much. I appreciate the help.

No problem, it is a good site. Try the black and white version of the starscape, it is less cluttered.

Heh, I didn't realize how quick my reply was. Good timing I guess. Good luck with the viewing.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Of course, there's nothing like having your own software to track the heavens...

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8418

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

There's also Skyview Café. You can even download the code for version 3 to see how it works. (Another thing on my list of things to try).

Also a list of planetarium software is published on the www.seds.org web site. Many operating systems are covered and the programs listed are commercial, shareware, and freeware. Some packages have demos as well.