On this night, Mercury and Mars are the stars of the show! The pair of naked-eye planets appear right next to each other in the early evening night sky. Mars will appear reddish in colour but Mercury will appear as the brighter.
When and where to look:
7pm, 19th October above the western horizon.
Use the above image as a guide. Astronomical images provided by SkySafari, a Simulation Curriculum Company, All rights reserved www.simulationcurriculum.com.
For telescopes
At the moment, Mars only appears as a small red dot in small and medium sized telescopes.
The best viewing of planets is when they are at ‘opposition’. Opposition is a word that astronomers often use. A planet is said to be in opposition when it is on the opposite side of Earth to the Sun. It means that the planet is as close as it gets to Earth for the year which makes for great viewing.
When it comes to Mars, opposition occurs every 26 months or so. Earth orbits the Sun faster than Mars and every 26 months we catch up to the red planet. The last opposition of Mars was on 16th January 2025 and the next one won’t be until 19th February 2027.
One more thing to remember is that not all oppositions are the same for Mars. Its orbit around the Sun is elliptical or slightly more oval shaped than our Earth’s orbit. That means every now and then at opposition Mars is closer to Earth than at other times. We’ll have to wait until the oppositions in 2031 and 2033 to see Mars at its best through telescopes.