This Week’s Sky at a Glance, July 31 – August 8

Mars rises in the east around 11 p.m. daylight saving time this week, in Pisces. Watch for it to come up below the Great Square of Pegasus. By dawn Mars shines grandly high and bright in the south, a far-off bonfire in the heavens.

In a telescope Mars grows from 14½ to 15½ arcseconds in apparent diameter, as big as it appears at some oppositions! But we’re still speeding toward it along Earth’s faster orbit around the Sun. Around this year’s opposition in early October, Mars will be 22.6 arcseconds wide.

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