FOR MONTHS VISIBLE only during morning hours, the Red Planet began August rising around 9:45 or 10 p.m. local daylight time and peeks above the horizon about four minutes earlier each night. Mars is now the third-brightest object in the nighttime sky, after the moon and Venus. To the unaided eye, Mars is by far the brightest ?star? in the late-evening sky. Venus is currently too near the sun to be visible.
Astronomers measure brightness of stars and planets on a scale in which smaller numbers represent brighter objects. Already dazzling, Mars attains unusual brilliance this month, reaching magnitude -2.9 on Aug. 22 and staying that bright through Sept. 3. Venus can reach magnitude -4.0 or brighter.
Anyone who has a telescope, no matter how modest it is, will probably want to find out what it can do with Mars.
