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Post by Dragon Man on Oct 17, 2018 4:49:30 GMT
COMING SOON, THE COMET OF THE YEAR: Astronomers are calling Comet 46P/Wirtanen the "comet of the year." Two months from now, on Dec. 16th, the kilometer-wide ball of dirty ice will come within 11.5 million km of Earth--making it one of the 10 closest-approaching comets of the Space Age. Comet 46P/Wirtanen will probably become a naked eye object for several weeks during the holidays. Here's what it looks like now: Yasushi Aoshima of Ishikawa, Japan, took the picture using a 12-inch telescope. It shows the comet's green atmosphere which is, impressively, almost twice as wide as the planet Jupiter. The green color comes from diatomic carbon (C2)--a gaseous substance common in comet atmospheres that glows green in the near-vacuum of space. At the moment, the integrated brightness of the comet is similar to a 10th magnitude star--that is, dim. However, forecasters expect it to brighten more than 200-fold by December. If current trends hold, 46P could ultimately reach magnitude +3, making it not a Great Comet but a very good one, visible to the unaided eye and an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes. Comet Wirtanen passes through the inner solar system every 5.4 years. Right now it is near the orbit of Mars, and it is heading in our direction. Click on the image above to explore the comet's approach, courtesy of NASA/JPL. LINK: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=46P&orb=1Article from: spaceweather.com/
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Post by ChrisV on Oct 18, 2018 8:12:59 GMT
And who said there isn't much green in space
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Post by Dragon Man on Oct 18, 2018 9:38:08 GMT
And who said there isn't much green in space Holden Green
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Post by Dragon Man on Oct 20, 2018 14:36:58 GMT
Wow, it's currently a very faint critter! I aimed my scope/cameras at it and couldn't spot it among the faint starfield!! At first I thought I spotted it dead centre of frame as a faint fuzzy ball began to show itself in breaks between the cloud, but after about 10 minutes of watching it, it turned out to be an extremely faint side-on spiral galaxy buried in a nondescript starfield Oh well, give it another month and it should be easier to spot
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Post by davy on Oct 23, 2018 16:08:36 GMT
Can't wait to see what you guys capture
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2018 11:07:42 GMT
How many times have I heard or seen phrases like "The Comet of the Year" or "The Comet of the Century"? Comets are fickle by nature, just like cats (paraphrasing David Levy). There was a bunch of hoopla about Comet ISON a few years ago and it evaporated at perehelion. An astronomy club asked me to do a lecture on it about a month before and after five hours of research and making a Powerpoint and giving the 40-minute lecture, I made a personal decision never to lecture about Comets again. I do recall one of the final slides in my lecture warning that the comet may not be so spectacular after all as it had an unusually close perehelion and may fall apart. Sure enough, it did.
So I doubt if any astronomers "... are calling Comet 46P/Wirtanen the "comet of the year". It is likely that the news media is doing that. They are not as well versed in the sciences as I would like to see.
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Post by Dragon Man on Nov 4, 2018 11:56:43 GMT
I agree Matthew, the media absolutely love to hype up stories. It adds drama. It makes an ordinary story fascinating. It's the way journalism has always been. The don't 'report' a story, they 'embellish' a story. It is such a pity the SpaceWeather website does it too. Here's their original headline: spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=16&month=10&year=2018
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Post by fondofchips on Nov 29, 2018 11:50:04 GMT
Wow, it's currently a very faint critter! I aimed my scope/cameras at it and couldn't spot it among the faint starfield!! At first I thought I spotted it dead centre of frame as a faint fuzzy ball began to show itself in breaks between the cloud, but after about 10 minutes of watching it, it turned out to be an extremely faint side-on spiral galaxy buried in a nondescript starfield Oh well, give it another month and it should be easier to spot It is part of the comet finding challenge Ken, I spent ages finding one, more difficult if there isn't a recognizable object near to where it is. This one was in a very black area, I found it then knocked the tripod, then the air turned blue. I just said DOH! and some other choice words. Hasn't put me off looking for comets though.
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