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"Is that even brighter red thing, next to Antares, Mars? Antares was named as Anti-mars, or the 'other' Mars. Maybe I am seeing the wrong red star: there are only a handful of stars visible at a time these days."

Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. This month Mars dominates the eastern sky in early evening and is almost at its brightest as it continues to come closer each week. And next week the Moon not only visits the planet named for the goddess of love Venus but also parks incredibly close to the star antares whose name literally means the "Rival of Mars".

O.K., we've got our skies set up for 10 p.m. your local daylight savings time this week and next facing east where the brightest object you'll see will be reddish gold 4,000 mile wide Mars which by Halloween will be the third brightest object in the sky outshone only by the Moon and Venus. It's racing toward us and at the beginning of October is only 49 million miles away. But by the end of the month on October 29th, the date of its closest approach to Earth, it will be 6 million miles closer, only 43 million miles away. And that's close for Mars. In fact, it won't be this close again until 2018. And if you compare it to where it was way back 13 months ago on September 6th, 2004 it was 248 million miles away 205 million miles farther away than it will be on October 29th.

Right now you can easily see some detail on its surface through a small telescope. But please don't make the mistake of thinking you are going to see it the way we do with the hubble space telescope. Remember it's only a 4,000 mile wide planet, only half the size of our 8,000 mile wide Earth. Now, just for fun, if you want to see how Mars usually looks you can go out just after sunset where you will see its sometimes look alike rival. Let me show you. O.K., we've got our skies still set up for this week and next but instead of facing east we're facing southwest where you'll be absolutely dazzled by Earth sized 8,000 mile wide Venus which is always the brightest planet and which this week is only 86 1/2 million miles away.

Then if you look up to Venus' left you'll see the reddish gold star that marks the heart of Scorpius the scorpion and whose name literally means the rival of Mars because Mars often looks just about the same color and brightness, although right now Antares can't even touch Mars in brilliance. And when Mars is far away from us on the other side of its orbit it actually becomes much dimmer than Antares. So sometime this week and next visually compare Antares' and Mars' brightness. And in case you're one of those who has a hard time making sure you've found the right star or planet, well next Thursday October 6th an exquisite crescent Moon complete with earthshine will be parked right beneath Venus and on Friday October 7th will almost slam into Antares. Once again, Moon and Venus, October 6th, Moon and Antares, October 7th. Wow! What a way to open October, the Moon visits two exquisite objects and Mars enters the final stretch. Keep looking up!