Today and tomorrow, the Observatorio Astronómico de Mallorca in Costitx, Mallorca, is keeping its doors open after hours for you to come and look at the sky.

The reason is a particularly close proximity and with that, some rather good views of planet Mars, commonly referred to as the Red Planet.

The observatory normally opens from 18h00 until 20h30 for regular night time observations, but today, tomorrow and Friday, hours will be extended until 22h30 to allow for a special viewing of Marte, as the Red Planet is called in Spain (weather permitting). Mars will not be as close to planet Earth until 2016. Close in this case means, only 88,000,000 km away. Why wait?

You can telephone 971.513.344 (only 09h30 to 13h40) for more information. If you want to go for a look at the sky, the address is Cami de l’Observatori s/n, Costitx.

The photo is, admittedly, not of my own making. I borrowed the snap from the Internet, courtesy of Hubblesite.org. I owe them many thanks.