[X] My Assistant

[Bob Shaw]

Apart from the forthcoming SOHO views, does anyone know of any other spacecraft which are slated to observe Comet McNaught? Obviously, few will be able to look at it while it's turning past the Sun!


Bob Shaw

[tasp]

I recall being mesmerized by Comet Bennet as a young teenager. Unusual for me to have seen a comet in the east, as my boyhood home was built on the west slope of a rather large hill. My Bennet recollection was made possible by a timely trip across Kansas from north to south on our way to visit relatives in Oklahoma.

The comet was the highlight of the trip.


Bennet remains for me, my 'standard' comet.

[edstrick]

http://spaceweather.com/ has a link to a pagefull of recent images of the bright comet in BRIGHT twilight. I'm trying to see it before I go to bed this morning.

[ynyralmaen]

Apart from the forthcoming SOHO views, does anyone know of any other spacecraft which are slated to observe Comet McNaught?

Yes - according to this page: http://ares.nrl.navy.mil/sungrazer/index.php?p=latest_news, the STEREO-A spacecraft should be observing it later this week.

[ups]

Let's hope Comet McNaught starts flaring up soon...
______

Michael Jager and Gerald Rhemann photographed comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) from Austria in twilight 45 minutes before sunrise on Jan. 3. Rhemann told SPACE.com they used 7x50 binoculars to find the comet. They estimate that today (Jan. 5) it shone at magnitude +1 and they expect to see it with the naked eye next week. Image used with permission.

space.com .

[djellison]

merged the two topics - we were doubling up.

Complete cloud for the past couple of days here - not a hope in hell of seing the thing.

Doug

[ugordan]

This is probably lack of sleep affecting my mental abilities, but how can the comet be visible at dawn AND at twilight at the same time? Wouldn't that suggest a north-south position w/respect to the Sun -- in wich case it would set/rise at the same time as the Sun? Well, more or less...

EDIT: Aaaargh... nevermind, I got it. Has to do with Earth's tilt so northern objects rise earlier and set later from the northern hemisphere, right?

[akuo]

Yes, the comet is currently about 10 degrees almost directly north of the sun, which means far enough north (like in northern Finland), you could observe the comet all DAY, since the sun doesn't rise over the horizon at all. This would require almost totally clear horizon and good weather, and the weather hasn't been acting nicely at least for me: almost constant rain for the last week or so. I guess I'll miss the chance to see another naked eye comet .

The comet is closing in on sun fast and in a few days it'll be off to the southern declinations and forever gone to us northeners. People of the southern hemisphere might get a good show though.

[ugordan]

If it makes you feel any better, I've got clouds for the past few days as well. The last comet I actually saw was Hale-Bopp!

[Mongo]

It's the same story here -- nothing but 100 percent cloud forecast for the next week to ten days. I also looked at the location of my parents (2000 km away) and they are facing almost the same forecast (with the exception of a possibility of partly clear skys on Thursday). Frustrating is the word, all right.

Bill

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

If it makes you feel any better, I've got clouds for the past few days as well. The last comet I actually saw was Hale-Bopp!

Its been cloudy for about 3 weeks here lol

[djellison]

There is a mutual exclusivity between transient astronomical phenomenon and the British climate - I'm sure of it.

Doug

[Guest_Myran_*]

stu wrote: ......and there was the comet, painted across the sky like a grey-green lighthouse beam, ridiculously, and I mean ridiculously long. Sweeping it with binoculars we saw brighter areas, clumps, filigree streamers and lines... just beautiful... never forget that...

Oh yes, you describe Hyakutake the way I did see it too, from your description it seems clear that also you did see it any of those nights when it passed closest to Earth.

[dvandorn]

The first comet I tried to see was Ikeya-Seki in 1968 (I believe it was). It flew too close to the Sun and disintegrated, if I recall correctly, and so the impressive display we were supposed to see in the northern hemisphere never materialized. (I think I have this right -- I was only 12 at the time, and all I recall really clearly is that I was never able to see the thing, which was a big disappointment at the time.)

The first comet I remember actually seeing was Bennett in 1970. I had received a small telescope (3" reflector) for Christmas, and so when Bennett became clear and naked-eye visible in the early spring, I was out in my back yard (at ridiculous-o'clock-in-the-morrning, especially for a 14-year-old) with my 'scope, looking at the comet. I never saw a nucleus; I think all my 'scope was able to resolve was the coma. The tail was well defined, though, and some very nice knots and streamers were visible, if fainter than I would have expected.

As for more recent comets, Hyakutake wasn't nearly as impressive to me as Hale-Bopp was. Perhaps we in the northern hemisphere didn't get a really good viewing angle on Hyakutake, but all I ever recall seeing of it was a fuzzy blotch in the sky with a tail that you had to look away from it to see -- it faded to invisibility if you looked directly at it.

Hale-Bopp, however... that was the most impressive comet I've ever seen. Its tail was also not as bright and noticeable as I would have expected -- after a certain distance from the nucleus, it was best seen out of the corner of one's eye. But in very clear and dark skies, it was an amazing site.

Especially from the air... you see, in April of '97 I went to England on business, and as we flew through the (very short) night along the Great Circle route up north of the Arctic Circle, I saw the most impressive sight I can ever recall: green curtains of auroral displays draping the horizon, with Hale-Bopp hovering barely five degrees above the horizon, its dust tail forming a great sweeping filament that seemed to flow up and out of the auroras, its ion tail flashing brightest of all, bluish against the green of the auroras.

It was a view worth the price of the trip...

-the other Doug

[Bob Shaw]

There is a mutual exclusivity between transient astronomical phenomenon and the British climate - I'm sure of it.

Doug

Doug:

Unless you TYPE IN CAPITALS, favour green ink and have been regularly IN CONTACT with the good/nasty aliens. Aha.

Then the weather is always *perfectly* clear!


Bob Shaw