Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Misleading Statement

Four or five people have written to tell me that on August 27th Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.  I have written each to say that is impossible.

Later I looked at the statement they made.  It is printed on two lines in different styles of type, to make a misleading, exciting statement, that is flat out not true.

Look at the way they wrote it>>

At a modest  75-power magnification


Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye
.

See the difference.  If you look at Mars through a telescope it will look as big as the Moon does to the naked eye.

There are going to be a bunch of disappointed people on August 27th expecting to see an amazing Mars.  Sorry, folks, it will just be a bright star.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

AND, apparently not until October.  Check out snopes.com

Anonymous said...

Last year it was supposed to be extra big and extra close, so we stood in line for hours on a hot evening to see it from the scope atop Flandrau Plantarium.  Big letdown.  With my vision, it was a tiny, blurry white thing.

Karen