+ Mars | Third Watch

For the 3rd straight night, my son had been bugging me to check the night skies for the elusive Planet Mars that was stated to be visible to the naked eye as being as big and as bright as the moon since it was supposedly closest to earth this August month.

He made me promise to wake him up if I spot the "second moon" for him to also witness this phenomenon as "no other human being in this live time will ever see it again." My wife wants to see it too.

For the past few nights, since I did not have any luck spotting it, my son thought that I was not actually standing guard for star gazing in his place since it will always be past his bedtime for him to do so.

Tonight I made sure I have proof that I did stand guard in my effort to spot Mars. I took pictures of the moon that rose behind the blocks of flats and the Poi Ching Primary School nearing almost midnight.

The sky was cloudy, but the moon was kind enough to show itself for the photograph.

And yes! I discovered another function of my digital camera using instead of the usual, no-fuss auto-focus setting to select A/S/M dial as manual and Exposure to ISO 400.

The results were stunning to me. Though a little shake is still evident from the photos, the night condition was transformed into bright surrounding.

A little grainy, but so impressed with the camera's function that I never gave time to read the manual to learn since I bought it.

Well son, these are the photos of the moon, but no Mars for now. We will have to keep virgil till Saturday, 27 August 2005 when Mars should be at its biggest and brightest as mentioned in the email.

Good luck to us the next round!