At last the hazy skies of the Qingdao summer are beginning to clear. As cooler northwest winds make their way down to Qingdao segueing the fall Autumnal Equinox which occurs on Thursday September 22nd. At this time the Sun crosses the celestial equator, and night and day are of exact equal length. After this the Sun moves into the southern sky, and for the next six months our days grow shorter than our nights. Autumn is always a premier time for those looking up at these latitudes so we watchers of the sky have much to look forward to. Beginning this month and until November, we have a special treat as the Red Planet Mars will be orbiting quite close to our earthly home. The oval shaped ecliptic path of all our solar system’s planets puts them in closer proximity to the earth at certain times and just two years ago Mars was a mere 56 million km from us. This time around it will be 69 million miles away at its closest point of approach on October 30th. Now there’s been some misinformation circulating on the cyber grapevine about just how viewable Mars will be. One sensational e-mail reads: PLANET MARS WILL LOOK AS LARGE AS THE FULL MOON TO THE NAKED EYE –THERE WILL APPEAR TO BE TWO MOONS IN OUR SKY! Sounds spectacular but don’t believe it. The fact is Mars is far too distant to ever loom as large as our moon in the sky. This actually is a good thing because it were that close the compound gravitational effect of it’s visit would alter our orbit and create massive tidal disturbances in our oceans! However, Mars, namesake of the Roman God of war, so well know to us as the subject of legend, fable, and even fear can be easily seen and is so distinctive it’s understandable why it’s received so much earthly attention through the annals of time.

Looking southeast after dark, planet Mars appears as a bright, ruby redish star in the sky only without the characteristic star "twinkle". Perhaps the easiest time to spot it will be on Wednesday September 21st, when Mars will be about five degrees –or three fingers width below the waning (shrinking) Moon. These two will remain in this position throughout the night. September is a special month for the Moon both east and west. The September full Moon is traditionally called the harvest Moon for the bright light it shines helping farmers to bring in the harvest. In Both European and Asian cultures it signals the advent of the seasonal harvest festivals. In times past, many Chinese would return to their homes to celebrate the bounty of the harvest and so the whole full moon also symbolizes the coming together of the whole family to feast on moon cakes and retell such legends as that of Chang ‘E the fairy that flew to the Moon (see Q.Ex. Sept. 2004) to live forever and still does to this day. If you’ve never sampled a Chinese moon cake you’ll have your chance this month –take a bite and smile back at Chang ‘E.

Sean Tm lives and works in Qingdao where he teaches and enjoys Astronomy…