Night Sky Photography -- 08-09-2020 -- The Waning Gibbous Moon & Mars Rising

Good evening fellow stargazers -- or rather, good morning, y'all!

I was up kinda late (or really early depending on how y'all recon these things) in order to capture a pair of beautiful shots featuring our beautiful Luna in her waning gibbous phase, joined by bright red Mars, rising in the east late after midnight. 

In my close-up shot of Luna, you can see the large craters on the lunar surface along the shadow of the Earth as it crosses over the left "eye" in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Serenitatis) of the Man on the Moon. 

Y'all might also notice that the small planet Mars is getting bigger and bigger. This is because Earth's faster orbit closer to the sun will bring us within opposition to Mars in its farther and slower orbit over the next few months. By September of this year, Mars will outshine Sirius, the brightest star in our sky next to our own sun. 

In early October when the opposition reaches its peak with Earth directly between the sun and Mars on Tuesday, October 13th of this year, the Red Planet will appear almost three times larger than normal and outshine Jupiter, the 4th brightest object in the sky after the Sun, Luna, and Venus. 

Mars will continue to shine more brilliantly than a 1st-magnitude star for the rest of the year and will effectively dominate the night skies after Luna.  

After this year, Mars next opposition will not happen again until December 28, 2022. This blogger will pray for clear skies this year so that I can offer y'all an amazing photo of the event.