by James S » Aug 13, 2003 @ 2:10pm
Ya, at 12:30 on August 27th Mars will be the closest to the Earth that is has been in over 5,000 years, and won't be this close again for another 220+ years. At 12:30 on the 27th Mars, at 75x magnification, will appear to be as large as the moon does to the naked eye. I've looked at it several times this month and can clearly see two of the moons and fuzzy dark and light regions on the surface. This is just with a regular pair of binoculars. And this was several weeks before the orbits reach an optimum position.
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~sonne/james/tag.gif">