As our red neighboring planet closed the gap tighter between us
than it has in 60,000 years, eyes all over Earth have been on the
night skies.
As our red neighboring planet closed the gap tighter between us than it has in 60,000 years, eyes all over Earth have been on the night skies.
Amateur astronomers as well as people who rarely give the skies a second thought have pulled out dusty telescopes or even binoculars to try to get a better view of Mars.
Ron Dammann, the director of instrumentation for the Fremont Peak Observatory, has seen a rush of people who have headed to the closest observatory for a once-in-a lifetime opportunity.
“We’re getting a lot of people that have never seen anything like this before,” Dammann said. “They are coming to witness something that they won’t see again in their lifetime.”
For the last several Saturdays, the Fremont Peak observatory, which offers free public viewing on Saturday nights, has had to close off access by 9 p.m. because it has no more room to accommodate visitors.
“We probably had 450 people on Saturday night,” Dammann said. “We’d have more, but we run out of parking at the state park. We have an agreement that they have to close it down if it fills up.”
And while Mars already made its closest pass last week, there’s still plenty of time to see the red planet in full view.
“It’s still going to be fairly large, so nobody has to worry,” Dammann said. “Through October, Mars will be rising earlier. People won’t have to wait until 10 or 10:30 p.m., (like they do now).”
A Mars program at the observatory will begin 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 and Sept. 27.
While Mars makes a close appearance to Earth every 26 months as the orbs whirl around the sun, Dammann said that this year is rare not only because Mars is so close in this orbit but also because of the clarity in which it can be seen.
“Usually we have dust storms when it gets close,” he said. “Mars only has one-100th of Earth’s atmosphere, but is still has enough to make wind. This year, it doesn’t seem to be happening.”
With Fremont Peak Observatory’s 30-inch telescope, volunteers of the organization can get anywhere from 160-times to 400-times magnification of the planet.
“It looks like the full moon seen by the naked eye,” he explained.
However, while the planet’s polar ice caps are easily visible, it still can be a challenge to make out many of the planet’s extraordinary features, like Olympus Mons, a volcano three times larger than Mount Everest, and Valles Marineris, the planet’s canyon that is six to seven times deeper than Grand Canyon in Arizona and the length of the United States.
“We try to push ourselves to see things we’ve never seen before, like surface features,” Dammann said. “They don’t have the shadow relief (like the moon’s craters). You don’t see that right now; it’s too bright. What you can see are some markings where it would be.
Saturday, volunteers at the observatory were able to cover up the light from Mars in the scope and in doing so made the planet’s two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which couldn’t be seen because Mars is so bright, appear.
Dammann said the amateur astronomers, who surely had never seen the moons with such clarity before, were excited about the find.
“I said, ‘We’ve got Phobos and Deimos in view,’ and they came running up the hill,” he said.
And when it comes to the views of Mars that aren’t easy to see through a telescope on Earth, Fremont Peak Director Doug Brown will help put them in view through a Mars presentation at the beginning of the 8 p.m. Saturday program.
“The presenters often try and tailor a talk to the audience and to what is being viewed,” Dammann said. “Doug will do the talk for Mars. He’s got a lot of neat things.”
Among the interesting ways Brown has of showing Mars is a 3-D flight simulation of an SR-71 flying in and around Valles Marineris.
The Fremont Peak Observatory was built in the early 1980s by volunteers and then handed over to the state. Telescope maker and now Director Emeritus Kevin Medlock was looking for a place for his 30-inch telescope, and the park service cooperated to approve the building of the observatory
The observatory opened in 1986, and is now open April through October on weekends when there is no full moon. Medlock owns the telescope and charges a $1 per year fee to the observatory association.
“The reason for doing this is it’s giving education in astronomy to the public,” Dammann said. “As for what it’s done for astronomy, people who were interested in astronomy can show actually see what’s up in the sky.
“They try to push themselves to see things,”
Dammann said the Mars viewing is having the same effect on both children and adults alike.
“It sparks a bit of curiosity that may or may not have been there before,” he said. “(Parents) want to show (their children) something a little different.”
To visit the observatory, Dammann suggests getting to the park early, not just because of the high number of people trying to get a view of Mars but also because the drive up into the park can be tricky.
“It’s generally a good idea to get there during the day,” he said.
All visitors need to do is pay a $3 day use fee to get into the park. The observatory doesn’t charge for for admission. Instead, it exists on membership fees equaling $20 a year for the 160 members of the observatory, who can reserve the telescope do do their own work or do photography.
However, the organization does have occasionally get donations from donation boxes that are kept in the presentation room.
“If anyone has a few cents they can throw in, that’s great, but we don’t expect it,” Dammann said.
Presentations begin at 8 p.m. and then public viewing of the telescope begins when it gets dark. While the program ends at midnight, “Most of the volunteers go way beyond that,” Dammann said.
From Highway 101, about 11 miles south of Gilroy, take the eastbound Highway 156 exit. Go 3 miles to a traffic light, and turn right onto county Highway G-1 (San Juan Canyon Road). After 200 yards the road forks. Take the left fork. It then immediately forks again, this time go right. You should see a small brown sign saying “Fremont Peak State Park 11 miles.” The road follows up the canyon and the winds up a ridge into the park.
