Comet observation from Mars, comets close encounters to Mars in 2013 and 2014 |
Comet observation from Mars, comets close encounters to Mars in 2013 and 2014 |
Feb 25 2013, 10:07 PM
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 18 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Czech Republic Member No.: 300 |
Is there is any possibility to observe comets in near future from surface of Mars and/or from Mars orbiters. Which types of instruments are possible to use?
For example (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi - position Mars 0deg Longitude, 5deg south Latitude, time UTC): 1) Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) 2013-Oct-01 17:19UTC RA 23 07 44.73 DE +69 27 46.0 MAG 2.93 r 1.637007919902 delta 0.07246306543080 So there is relativly very close encounter in October 2013, about 11 million km from Mars.. 2) Comet C/2013 A1 (Sidding Spring) 2014-Oct-19 20:59UTC RA 10 49 50.64 DE -60 38 09.5 MAG -8.29 r 1.401218071277 delta 0.00070643344409 There is still maybe not so precise orbit BUT, there is ONLY about 105 000 km (65 000 miles) encounter from Mars. Especially the second comet, if this orbit will be OK, is very interesting target to observe. -------------------- |
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Oct 2 2013, 10:18 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 691 Joined: 21-December 07 From: Clatskanie, Oregon Member No.: 3988 |
Fred that is correct, ISON shouldn't have a trail that follows the stars, but should move between long exposure frames and have its own movement or trail if the images were taken with very long exposure. In my opinion, Gerald's heavily processed images do make a good case that it's the comet based on aligning the stars in his image and what starry night spits out, ISON's position aligns very well with his candidate. I'm curious though exactly how he processed those. I did use Opportunity's current position. Hopefully the PDS images will be a help in solidly confirming it when they are released.
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Oct 4 2013, 03:32 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
I'm curious though exactly how he processed those. There is some tolerance in processing FredK's image taken as starting point. Here a graphics which should provide sufficient detail of how a resulting image with a position estimate can be obtained: I don't think, there is a simple yes/no-answer, whether or not ISON is seen in the images. The above processing is just a draft showing that the images are worth a closer look. A more detailed statistical discussion about acceptable a-priori knowledge, the resulting conditional probabilities and confidence levels of some properties of ISON (like position or brightness) will be needed. That's worth a paper, but clearly outside the limitations of a short post. |
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Oct 4 2013, 04:44 PM
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#4
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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