Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Options

[Tman]

Hubble is really invaluable and any cent worth - in past and future!

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0605.html

It was observed too by one of the VLTs but on rather low horizon, so there was too much atmosphere for a better result I guess - but for comparison to Hubble's image... http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-15-06.html

Is there already a new study about potential meteors (shower) from the comet in the future? This time (from mid-May) the most dust is probably still too far away.

[odave]

This is a neat event to follow. Fragment C, the "main" comet is now a naked eye object under dark skies, and B is getting brighter as well. Both are fairly easy targets for binoculars, and look really nice in even modest telescopes. It's passing through the constellation Hercules now - fragment finder charts and other info can be found here. It's worth a look!

obUMSF: It would be really cool to fly a mission to 73P, lots of comet innards on display and you don't need an impactor!

[djellison]

Well - Contour would have gone to 73P - but it was not to be

Doug

[odave]

More on a potential meteor shower: according to Science@NASA, it's possible but unlikely for debris from the 1995 breakup:

This is very uncertain, indeed, forecasters consider it unlikely. But an expanding cloud of dust from the 1995 break-up of the comet could brush past Earth in May 2006 producing a display of meteors.

Astronomer Paul Wiegert at the University of Western Ontario has studied the possibility:

"We believe the cloud is expanding too slowly to reach Earth only eleven years after the break-up," he says, "but it all depends on what caused the comet to fly apart—and that we don't know."

And for the 2006 activity:

Assuming a thermal breakup for 73P, Wiegert and colleagues have calculated the most likely trajectory of its dust cloud. Their results: dust should reach Earth in 2022, "producing a minor meteor shower--nothing spectacular. However," he adds, "the ongoing splitting of the comet means new meteoroids are being sent in new directions, so a future strong meteor shower from 73P remains a real possibility."

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Well - Contour would have gone to 73P - but it was not to be

Doug

Cheer up. Maybe there'll still be at least one piece left big enough for CONTOUR 2 to visit in 2017-20. (Frankly, though, given the amount of large debris SW3 seems to be spraying around, I'm not sure we should fly a high-speed flyby spacecraft anywhere near it. We might very well have lost CONTOUR 1 during its scheduled flyby of that mess right now.)

[ljk4-1]

Maybe some pieces of SW3 will visit us!

[dilo]

Hubble is really invaluable and any cent worth - in past and future!

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0605.html

Fireworks in space! (look also to videos, they are stunning)
Herebelow i processed the 3 images in order to better see the faintest, smallest fragments.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[djellison]

I've been trying to find this thing in my Binos without any luck so far - I'm such a crap observational astronomer it's not even funny, but I'll keep looking tonight

Doug

[dilo]

Fireworks in space! (look also to videos, they are stunning)
Herebelow i processed the 3 images in order to better see the faintest, smallest fragments.

Hem, just discovered that first two images are the same! This is the correct version:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[ugordan]

I've been trying to find this thing in my Binos without any luck so far - I'm such a crap observational astronomer it's not even funny, but I'll keep looking tonight

This is probably obvious to any astronomer, so it's probably not worthy of pointing it out, but have you tried diverting your sight away a little bit? The peripheral vision is really much better at spotting faint objects.
Then again, a pair of binoculars probably hasn't got that large a FOV that you can actually use this method and this only works after you HAVE located the damn thing so it's probably just useless advice

[Tman]

There's a lovely image from Thierry Legault that shows the fragment B near the globular cluster M13 in Hercules.

http://www.astrosurf.com/rastaman/sw3-m13%...y%20Legault.jpg

Two days ago I saw fragment C for the first time with a 8x40 Bino very faint - but not until my eyes were adapted (after ~10min). Currently it'll be more difficult again, our moon is already rather bright and bothering.

[lyford]

if Shoemaker-Levy as known as "String of Pearls", dilo's processing makes me think we should nickname Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 "A Beard of Stars." Gorgeous!

[Tman]

Fireworks in space! (look also to videos, they are stunning)

Yeah the videos are great works! I'm a bit sceptical about this morphing technique, but few pieces are traceable in the individual pictures - and one (I think) get suddenly brighter.

[Tman]

In German speaking Europe it's actually the "crumb" comet (Bröselkomet)
However calling fragment B as the "beard fragment" it's the right thing I think

[SigurRosFan]

The first image taken by Spitzer is online:

- http://sscws1.ipac.caltech.edu/Imagegaller..._name=sig06-011

<< The new image is a tantalizing preview of a much larger picture Spitzer will obtain during observations on May 4 to 6, 2006. The telescope's super sensitive infrared eyes will have an unprecedented view of the debris stretching between larger comet chunks. >>

73P-C, B and G on April 1: