Well, since you brought it up.... visibility was the best so far this year on Saturday night; a huge Canadian air mass had just moved thru the night before, and the dew points were down in the low 40's. The air was much more stable than it was just a few days earlier, though it was by no means ideal.
Notwithstanding the atmospheric turbulence, the Southern polar cap was so clearly visible it looked like it was about to jump out and crawl down the telescope tube. Even distinct dark surface features were faintly, and fleetingly visible in the Southern hemisphere of Mars.
All that was visible using a 100 year old 6" refractor.
Here's what another amateur accomplished with a 16" scope and some computer enhancment the other night:
http://www.sg-planets.org/mars/mars200308221617ut.jpg
It appears the ancients - thousands of years before Qumran - followed meteor activity very closely both as omens and in order to collect the iron. Some of them call the meteors "falling stars" - but nowhere have I found any indication that they believed stars could die.
So, I'm still looking for the first notion that stars arise and die by becoming "lightening."