Mars reaches opposition, glowing like a ruby in the sky

A tthe start of December Mars will be rising in the northeast at sunset. It will reach its highest point above the southeastern horizon around 23:00, then arc down to set in the west at sunrise, but all through December Mars will be a strikingly bright orange-red evening star, very obvious to the naked eye. Mars will spend the month in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, which is dominated by two large and bright star clusters, the large, V-shaped Hyades cluster and the smaller Pleiades cluster, which looks like a mini Big Dipper.

During December Mars will be shining close to these two celestial celebrities, presenting naked eye observers, binocular users and night-sky photographers with quite a beautiful scene. At the start of the month Mars will be brighter and closer to us than it has been for two years as it reaches opposition. Because Mars will be brighter than the stars around it, it will be very easy to find, even if you don’t know the night sky very well. Mars will be at its very best around 8 December, during its closest approach to Earth. Then it will shine at magnitude -1.9, far outshining any other star or planet around it. Unfortunately it will also be very close to the full Moon that night, so its brightness will be diminished by the Moon’s glare, but it won’t matter too much because Mars will still be easily visible to the eye, and within a few days the Moon will be out of the way, leaving Mars to blaze brightly on its own.