From the page: “A major dust storm has just broken out on Mars and the event will be visible this weekend with good-sized backyard telescopes.
The timing is incredible. Amateur skywatchers around the world are planning to gaze at Mars Saturday night because it will be closer to Earth than anytime until the year 2018.
The dust storm was no more than a small bright dot Thursday yet it was large and obvious Friday, as seen in images taken by Clay Sherrod at the Arkansas Sky Observatories.
NASA took note and is monitoring signals from its Mars rovers, one of which has detected signs of the storm, SPACE.com has learned.
The storm “will be quite obvious and plainly visible in even small telescopes from the Western Hemisphere for about the next week,” Sherrod said in an email to colleagues that was forwarded to SPACE.com.”
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hmm I took my backyard telescope out to my backyard. It promptly clouded up.