In the meantime, if you live within about a 100 miles of St Louis Missouri and you're thinking of taking on the Astronomical League's Mars Observing Program, then here's a link to a nice ephemeris for Mars supporting that program and a link to a document on how to read it.

By the way: At the end of May a dust storm developed. We haven't seen Mars this good since it started:

What it looks like today, June 18 (at least from my 8 inch SCT here in Missouri):

I will say it appears more than a magnitude brighter than predicted.

As of July 7 it appears to be magnitude -3 at least. If this keeps up, it should be mag -5 by opposition on July 28th.

Keep you're eye on this guy, it just keeps getting larger and brighter smaller and dimmer with each passing day (we passed opposition a nd closest approach on 1 August 2018. In smaller telescopes like the 8" SCT, the dust storm still looks like the image above :(

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(Click on the image below to see the animation)

 

Page describing how "Terminator - The small movie" was made as well as the full size animation.

 

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Graphical view 

of the weather predictions along the 2017 total eclipse line.

1. Casper Wyoming is on the centerline
2. Laing Park is near Alliance Nebraska (west) and is on the centerline
3. Grand Island Nebraska (East) is on the centerline
4. Missouri State University is St. Joseph Missouri and is on the centerline
5. Columbia Missouri is on the Center line
6. Danville Missouri
7. Broemmelsiek Park Missouri
8. St. Clair Missouri is on the Center line
9. Carbondale Illinois is on the centerline
10. Shepard' Valley Observatory is just north of the Centerline and is East of Nashville Tennessee
    

 

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St. Louis Astronomical Society Event Calendar from the Night Sky Network.

 

 

 

 

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