Britain is in the grip of eclipse fever, given the total eclipse which will track over Penzance and Falmouth this summer. Just about everyone else seems to be interested in Mars.
NASA has new images of the Red Planet coming in from its Mars Global Surveyor satellite which only recently began to send back highly detailed pictures. The European Space Agency, not wishing to be left out of the rush to study the planet, has just signed a £47 million contract with Matra Marconi for the development of a "Mars Express" satellite to search for life - present or past - on the Martian surface.
Nor will back-garden astronomers be disappointed. Late April and early May will provide particularly good viewing opportunities as Mars moves into "opposition" to the Earth. This means that the Sun, Earth and Mars will line up, with Mars sitting sharp against the night sky's dark back-drop.
Mars reaches opposition on April 24th, but it will also move into a close orbital position to Earth a week later, when the two planets will be separated by 53.8 million miles. This isn't as close as it gets but it isn't bad, so even weak telescopes should be able to pick out some features.
Later this week, Mars moves into the constellation Virgo, appearing to the naked eye as a glowing red ember in the southern sky by 10 p.m. or so. It will be brighter than the brightest star, Sirius, second only to the planet Venus, which can be seen at present in the western sky after sunset.