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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Jan 1 2012, 06:43 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
Comet-ml post #19176 by John Bortle:
QUOTE By physical necessity and as I've pointed out previously, the dust tail of 2011 W3 SHOULD be continuing to lengthen...at least until the surface brightness of the outermost portions drop completely below the detection limits of the method being employed. For the unaided eye I'm afraid that this will occur fairly soon. However, for appropriately long exposed, highly processed, fairly small-scale images this interval should be considerably extended.
If astro-imagers familiar with the sorts of image processing done to bring out the absolute threshold details in such objects as galaxies apply their techniques to appropriate images of the comet I see no reason for the ultimate length of the tail not turning out to be something in the order of 50-60 degrees by mid January. I know that years ago when I dabbled in this area I could bring out details far beyond what I ever imagined were in the original images (although the pictures no longer were very pretty to look at!) J.Bortle |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 27th September 2024 - 09:47 AM |
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