By AIMEE TABOR atabor@standardspeaker.com
As the evening sky twinkles and dances above Earth, a once in a lifetime event is taking place in the heavens.
In the darkness of night, a bright object shines down on Earth as it moves throughout the night sky.
As each day passes, Mars is moving closer to Earth.
This morning, the fourth planet from the sun will be the closest to Earth as it's been in 60,000 years.
To be exact, Mars will be 34.65 million miles away from Earth, information from NASA stated. Only a few months ago, Mars was about five times further away.
After today, Mars, otherwise known as the red planet, will once again begin its journey back toward its other brothers and sisters.
To document and observe this special occasion, Greater Hazleton Area Astronomical Society {GHAAS) members have been sky watching with their telescopes, cameras and other equipment.
Last Saturday evening and Sunday morning, several members of the organization set up camp at their site near Eckley Miners' Village to document Mars and watch other celestial bodies.
The group got to their site late Saturday and stayed until the wee hours of Sunday morning.
They brought their own telescopes, digital cameras and Web cams to document Mars, Gary Honis, assistant director of the GHAAS, said.
"Using a Web cam, we can take movies of Mars," Honis said. "We can take up to 10 minutes of footage. We want a good crisp image of Mars so we use the Web cam."
In a 10-minute time span, 6,000 images of Mars are captured.
"Our software will pick out the best image," Honis said. "The end result is a detailed image of Mars."
Viewing Mars around this time of the year means astronomers can see it around 9:30 p.m., Honis said. However, the best time to view is when Mars is highest in the sky, which is around 1:30 a.m.
"That's when most details on Mars can be seen," Honis said.
Although this year's event is 60,000 years in the making, Mars and Earth normally move closer to each other every two years when the two planets lap each other's orbits.
"We only get a chance to do this every two years," Honis said. "Earth and Mars come close to each other every two years." But this time, the distance between the two is significantly closer.
With Mars being so close, viewers can see even more details of the seventh largest planet in the solar system by using a telescope.
Viewed through a high powered telescope, the slightly different hues on the surface of Mars represented the valleys and mountains.
At one end of Mars, an intensely bright spot was seen, showing one of the polar ice caps on the planet.
"Just like earth, Mars has a polar ice cap," Honis said. "Right now it's spring on Mars so the ice cap is shrinking. A few months ago it was larger."
The seasons are at different times on Mars because the planet is on a different tilt and travels on a different path around the sun than Earth, Tom Orff, secretary of the GHAAS said.
"Its seasons last twice as long because it takes twice as long to orbit the sun," he said.
Another feature Honis and fellow GHAAS member Bob Visgaitis observed Aug. 15 from Honis' driveway in Conyngham was Phobos, one of the moons of Mars.
Using Honis' 20-inch Starmaster telescope, the pair observed Phobos, a rare discovery for Earth-based telescopes.
Mars' other moon, Deimos, hasn't been observed as of yet.
When viewed Saturday, Mars gave the appearance it was "boiling." .
That term is given when the jet stream interferes with viewing, Honis explained. Although it was a clear night, the stars appeared to be twinkling because of the jet stream.
"The jet stream causes distortion," Honis said.
Although Mars will begin moving away from Earth, there's still plenty of time to view the planet.
Next month and in October, the GIlAAS tentatively has scheduled two public events.
The events, which are expected to be held at the Evelyn Graham building at Penn State Hazleton, tentatively are set for Sept. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m., and Oct. 11 from 7 to 9 p.m.
People can view the GHAAS web site at http://userweb.nni.com/ghaas/ for posts on additional information on the times and locations for the events.
Besides Mars, GHAAS members viewed nebulas, planets, star clusters, meteors and galaxies.
With a telescope, members found the MilkyWay's neighboring galaxy, M-31, or the Andromeda Galaxy.
Just like with Mars, the GHAAS members documented other celestial bodies. Orff used a telescope equipped with a Charged Coupled Device (CCD) camera to photograph Andromeda.
The whole process takes about 19 minutes to complete. Orff was using different colored filters to get a colored image of Andromeda.