I've just come in from the chilly night air after watching the Lunar Eclipse.

Fortunately the clouds did pass over the hour and a half I've just spend viewing it.

I don't have any photos yet, but will process some and post once I wake up properly.

The eclipse started here at about 4:20am, and now it's just after 6, so am kinda sleepy.

Opposition? Mars?

Basically, the Sun and Mars are opposite each other, and because of the elliptical orbits planets take around the Sun, Mars is really close to the Earth, so it looks really large and extra bright in the night sky.

You could see Mars right next to the Lunar Eclipsed Moon (viewing from Australia), so once the full moon was in the Earths shadow, Mars looked even brighter. Very cool indeed.