Tom,

>The size cannot be correct. I got this from a fellow worker, who got it from the Internet. The Internet is the place where everything you read is true! :)

How many times have you heard: "But I saw it on the Internet!" Well, that proves it for me (:-P

>During the August 27 oposition to Mars, the red plant will be bright and spectacular.
>However, the Internet mis-information about it's apearent size is laughable.
>
>Mars will be 25 arcseconds across.

Snipped the math lesson. And the election thread drift.

>By the way I will bet it will be foggy in the San Francisco Bay Area and we will miss the entire event.

Fog is quite a problem here in this valley also. I do have a location <10 miles from here that is pretty good and provides some decent viewing. But the light pollution is bad - I can point to within a few degrees to Syracuse, Binghamton, and Utica/Rome. Really kills the viewing near the horizon. Have you seen http://www.darksky.org/ida/darksky/darksky_map.html before? Doesn't seem fully functional today for some reason...