The Great Christmas Comet of 2011, 2011 W3 (Lovejoy) |
The Great Christmas Comet of 2011, 2011 W3 (Lovejoy) |
Guest_Sunspot_* |
Dec 2 2011, 09:59 PM
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Guests |
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=.../birthday_comet
Possible very bright sungrazing comet coming mid December - Comet Lovejoy C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) Information in the link above. |
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Dec 29 2011, 02:00 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
Comet-ml post #19131 by Andrew Pearce:
QUOTE Hi all
I finally observed this wonderful comet from a very dark sky site in northern Victoria (Lockington) Australia. The tail now extends almost to the Coalsack nebula. I measured it as 30.0 degrees on Dec 28.74UT. What is most striking about it is it's extreme straightness. For all the long tailed comets I've observed there always appears to be some degree of curvature but not so with C/2011W3. The surface brightness is fainter now and would be a struggle to see much in a light polluted area but it is very impressive from my current dark sky site. To the naked eye, the head of the comet is virtually non existent and I'm not sure there's a lot of value in a coma total magnitude estimate. Regards Andrew Pearce |
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