Mars is coming! The planet is currently moving toward the best viewing position it will provide to us until the year 2014. Mars is currently midway between the zodiacal constellations of Taurus, the Bull and Gemini, the Twins. It is "shining like a pumpkin-hued, zero magnitude star, Mars is currently tied for fifth place (with Vega) among the 21 brightest stars."
But as it continues to approach our Earth in the coming weeks and months, Mars will only be getting brighter: it will surpass Sirius, the brightest star in the sky by Dec. 9 and during the latter half of December it will even almost match Jupiter in brilliance. Mars will come closest to Earth on the evening of December 18th (at around 6:46 p.m. Eastern Standard Time). The planet will then lie 54.8 million miles (88.2 million kilometers) from Earth as measured from center to center. When closest to Earth, Mars' apparent disk diameter will be equal to 15.9 arc seconds.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/070928_ns_mars_watch.html
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