Mars 2003 Close Approach:
Huge Crowds Swamp Jewett Observatory
During Late August, 2003, Mars swept closer to Earth than usual. This makes it bright (brighter than any star) and large in angular size so that telescopes can see more surface features than usual. At Michael Allen's suggestion, we committed to opening Jewett Observatory every night Monday through Saturday, bracketing the close approach of Aug 27. This also corresponded to the first week of classes at WSU.
Pre-event hype: Various news outlets latched on to an astonishing
fact, that Mars has not been this close in 59,540 years according to
numerical orbit computations, and thus brought wide exposure and a
high level of popular excitement to the close approach. As usual, we
distributed letter-sized posters to all campus buildings advertising
the event. These usually bring between 10 and 50 people to an open
night. In addition, the College of Sciences prepared a press release, and shortly after
Michael and I firmed up the observatory schedule reporters began to
call.
The Spokane
Spokesman-Review article, 8-23-03,
front page, gave an early start. A misprint in this article, that
our first open night would be Sunday the 24th, caused several to show
up to a deserted observatory that night. Monday night was clear, and
about 300 people showed up with lines about halfway down the hill. I was very, very impressed by this large
turnout and sent a "help" message to the local amateur astronomy club
(Palouse Astronomical Society) for them to show up with their
portables. Tuesday was so cloudy that Mars was invisible at first,
although some people got a good view later on. About 75 people came
by. For Wednesday, I checked out a small TV/VCR for the infotainment
of people if the line reached Monday's length.
On Wednesday, the student paper, the Daily Evergreen article 8-27-03
splashed an HST picture of Mars on the front page, along with
Observatory information. On Wednesday night, we hear, the TV
meteorologists (especially Chris Crocker of channels 4 and 9) were
urging people to head outside to view Mars, as this was "the day" of
close approach. The mighty power of mass media focused on the
observatory that evening. We opened on time, and it looked busy, so I
hummed around inside the dome, chatting with the people that were
there, unaware of what was happening outside. Finally, Michael Allen
told me that I had better go look. Parking had become impossible. A
line of people had formed all way down the hill (about 200 feet) out
into the parking lot (another 100 feet) and then down to the start of
Observatory Drive (500 feet). The campus police were aware of the
situation, and had blocked off observatory drive altogether to direct
traffic to more distant parking areas.
( See WSU Traffic Alert
8-28-03.)
Credit: R. L. Dietz
It is impossible to be accurate, but at least 1000 people were standing in line. I suspect another 1000 tried to come but either saw the line and left, or stayed briefly before leaving. We estimate that about 800 people got to look through the eyepiece of the 12-inch. We closed about 3 a.m.
Reaction: Daily Evergreen, 8-29-03, Page 1, Page 2. Moscow-Pullman Daily News, 8-29-03, Page 1, Page 2. On Thursday, we had at least 600, and at least 500 on Friday and Saturday.
Photos in and around the Observatory: The first 6 are few-second time exposures (so the lighting is natural, but people that move turn out blurry).
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
Credit: Mary Guenther
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
|
|
Credit: Irwin Horowitz
The lines on Thursday were still pretty long.
Credit: Rajah Bose
People hunker down to watch a documentary on Martian life playing on a small monitor on Thursday.
Credit: Rajah Bose
Uncredited pictures were taken by Guy Worthey
See named surface features.
Very Nice Jewett Observatory view (credit: Ken Remsen):
 Raw image. |
 With mild unsharp masking. |
 Feature Map. |