Quote:
Originally Posted by brian nordstrom
 Hi Mark , yes i seen and photographed it as well it cooled cool . I have been watching the triangle for a fortnight now and 2 weeks ago it was the perfect Eq triangle , then Mars pulled away and stretched it but its retrograde movement has brougt it back to form an Eq triangle with spica and saturn again , cool.
My shot is in the 'Beginners astrophotography ' section under ' Quadruple line up " .
Brian. |
It was cool, wasn't it! Very pretty last night with the Moon too.
<nit>
Mars wasn't retrograding - it passed from NW to SE through the 'gate' of the Saturn-Spica pair. Starting as a long triangle with Mars at the 'bottom' (from southern hemisphere) at the beginning of the month, Mars' movement took it to make an equilateral triangle (Mars at bottom), then a straight line last week with Mars in the middle, and then to now, with Mars pulling away, making a triangle that has Mars at the 'top'. Mars only retrogrades close to its oppositions.
</end nit, sorry for being picky!>.
Pretty special, and I'd guess fairly unusual sequence of events.