[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

How, when and where all here on my blog...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/

[TheAnt]

How, when and where all here on my blog...

Very well written, and several ones I noted now thank you for the heads up. =)
(And yes I thought Hyakutake spanning quite a bit of the sky would be the comet of my lifetime also. Happy 2013!)

((And thank you for the good merger. Me bad, I guess I have to make a contribution to the swear bucket - it must be a bucket and not just a jar by now right.- for my unability to find the thread already in place.))

[scalbers]

Here's my ephemeris that includes tail and visibility info as seen from 40N for ISON:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/ast/eph/ISON.2012S1.co.html

Steve

[scalbers]

Don't forget that 2013 will be The Year of the CometS, with another naked eye comet due to decorate the northern sky after sunset in March and April. Comet PANSTARRS runs the risk of being relegated to "warm up act" for ISON, but it might still be very impressive. Finder charts here...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/comet-panstarrs

PANSTAARS should be getting just far enough in elongation from the sun to be seen at about 10 degrees altitude in a dark sky from the southern hemisphere. Any recent magnitude estimates?

[scalbers]

Two different observers estimated it as 8.0 on January 7.

Comet fans can follow along at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CometObs/

Thanks - this is running about a magnitude fainter than my earlier ephermis so I've updated it at the link below with Jakob Cerny's light curve, peaking at +1.0 magnitude:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/ast/eph/PANSTARRS.2011L4.co.html

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/comets-ml/message/20415

By the way I added a new limiting magnitude/visibility entry in these ephemerides (rightmost columns) to help gauge the comet's appearance. This should help interpret how easy the comet will be to see as it brightens in the varying sky viewing conditions. The result is that PANSTARRS should have borderline naked eye visibility (both at 40N latitude and around the equator).

[scalbers]

Here's my ephemeris that includes tail and visibility info as seen from 40N for ISON:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/ast/eph/ISON.2012S1.co.html

Steve

The magnitude estimate in this post is 15.2 and suggests it may be brighter than I'd expect from the earlier light curve.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CometObs/message/4918

Thus I've updated the magnitude formula used in my above ephemeris to agree with Seiichi Yoshida's:

http://aerith.net/comet/catalog/2012S1/2012S1.html

[scalbers]

Indeed, Seiichi Yoshida has just calculated a new light curve that has PANSTARRS peaking at just magnitude 2.6. My latest ephemeris (updated Feb 9) reflects this, always staying in the realm of binocular visibility from 40N latitude.

I was being conservative at first with ISON, though more recently I've been getting on the optimistic bandwagon as well.

[Stu]

Hmmm. Turns out the idea of imaging Comet ISON from Mars with MSL isn't too reedickerlus after all...

http://www.universetoday.com/99777/deep-im...rmada-will-try/

[djellison]

I managed to bag a few shots of ISON using a couple of telescopes in the iTelescope network. This is from last night, by far my favoriate so far
http://twitpic.com/c1j5cj/full

[Stu]

Saw those, great work Doug!

[Tom Dahl]

Nice sequence of images, Doug! Thanks for posting.

I'm also interested that you used an iTelecope facility for the imaging. My daughter gave me a trial membership to it a few years ago (when the outfit was named GRAS I think). I took a few photos with the available telescopes, which was fun. I never quite understood the regular pricing model so I let my trial membership lapse.

[djellison]

I'll be honest - I had a tiny insight into what life must have been like for Tombaugh. It took me half an hour to find the comet at all on the images I took 19 hrs apart with the larger T11.

I tried it back in the GRAS days - and decided to try again with a hope to imaging Juno during its flyby later in the year

[Stu]

[TheAnt]

@Gladstoner: The Andromeda galaxy would be just a dot in the image of the MSL camera, and I suspect at the magnitude 3,4 is too faint.

@djellison: Great work bagging ISON there, and yes, the comparison with how Tombaugh searching for Pluto got some merit insofar ISON seem equally hard to spot. As for me I wait until I can use the 10*80 binocs.

[Stu]

Oh yes, the binoc view should be really pretty. I've invested in a new telescope for viewing the comets. Nice and lightweight, nice and portable, should be a doddle getting it up to the castle...