Solved A Possible Naked-eye Comet in March, A Better One in December.

Feb. 6, 2013: Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system. Astronomers call it the "Oort Cloud," and it is the source of some of history's finest comets.

One of them could be heading our way now.

Source: A Possible Naked-eye Comet in March - NASA Science​

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Jan. 18, 2013: Out near the orbit of Jupiter, a faint speck of light is moving through the black of space. At first glance it doesn't look like much, no brighter than a thousand distant stars speckling the velvet sky behind it; indeed, it takes a big telescope make out that it is a comet.

But what a comet it could turn out to be….

Later this year, “Comet ISON” could blossom into a striking naked eye object visible even in broad daylight.

Source: Comet of the Century? - NASA Science​

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Thanks a bunch for the heads up Anak! I will be on the lookout.

Thanks Anak I posted about ISON a while ago and was wondering what the go was - just hope it will be seen as well down here

LittleJay said:

Thanks a bunch for the heads up Anak! I will be on the lookout.

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Your welcome!

Now don't forget, The lowest Minnesota State line Latitude I can find is about 3.3° higher than mine in Pennsylvania (40.28°N), so, the graphic from Sky&Telescope will be about 1/2 to 1 day later than what I would see.

You may already understand this, but let me try to explain; It all depends from which direction the event approaches Earth.

Since you reside on a higher degree of the Earth's latitude, it takes longer for observations to enter into your view, if the event is coming from the Southern Hemisphere.

If the event was originally coming from the Northern Hemisphere and heading South, we would see it before the Southern Members of our Forum.
In any event, I'll let you know the first instance I see it!

We should be able to see the tail a few days before we can see the nucleus, the actual body of the comet.

ICit2lol said:

Thanks Anak I posted about ISON a while ago and was wondering what the go was - just hope it will be seen as well down here

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Your welcome John.

I don't if you've seen theses sites, but I hope they will help:
Will Comet ISON put on a show from the southern hemisphere near the end of 2013? | Sydney Observatory

This one's for PanSTARRS:
Astroblog: Viewing Comet C/2011 PanSTARRS in the Southern Hemisphere

It is coming close to the end for PanSTARRS in the Southerhn Hemisphere. When ISON gets closer you may find that Ian, from the astroblog, will be concentrating on it.

I like his disclaimer... Be careful out there, I'm not your mum.


Anak....aka....Steve

It's getting to be that time when observers in the Northern Hemisphere will have a chance to see Comet PANSTARRS. It will be very helpful if you have an unobstructed view of the Western horizon.

To give you a better understanding of where to look the following simulations (sim(s)) are screenshots taken from my Stellarium, 0.12.0 planetarium program.

You can find information on the position of the comet in the upper left-hand corner of the sim.
For compass readings look to the ninth and tenth entries from the top after the title called Az/Alt | explanation These are coordinates to help you find your direction of view.

• Azimuth matches readings on a compass.
• Altitude is how high in degrees the object is above the horizon. 10° is approximately the width of a man's hand held out at arms length. (Tip:your thumb should be facing up.)
• PANSTARRS will be the white dot in the center of the red reticle
• In each sim you will see the date progress, but the time will remain at 20:00hours est, this correlates to 8pm est.
• The second and third sims will be helpful as they give you a better reference point with the Moon as a guide.
• By the 26th PANSTARRS will be almost out of view, and you will notice the evening sky becoming lighter. Daylight Savings Time will go into effect on March 10th 2013 for most of the US.
• Additional Information: If you notice a difference in the Moon phase between the sims and the skyplot image I posted in my OP, that is because of the zoom factor used. To give you a better perspective I may have only succeeded in confusing you, the Azimuth remains almost due West at 269°. See fifth sim.
• There are observers that make a hobby of trying to view the newest of new Moon's: Moon Watch :: An Einstein Year Project
• These sims are plotted for 40.28°N Latitude if yours is higher you will see PANSTARRS lower, conversely if yours is lower you see PANSTARRS higher in the sky.

First up: March 10th 2013 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ March 12th
~

March 13th ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ March 26th
~

March 12th with increased magnification.



For more information on:
Astronomical Concepts - Stellarium Wiki

I will be posting more on Comet ISON as we get closer to the middle of Fall here in the Northern Hemisphere.

May you have clear skies, and good viewing

Anak

I found another visibility aide to help find PANSTARRS.
It steps through the next eleven days in the first 30sec., then three quicker runs to March 25th:

Will be/am keeping my eyes (and binoculars) peeled!

I hope you have better luck than I am having, its been cloudy each evening so far.

Anak said:

I found another visibility aide to help find PANSTARRS.
It steps through the next eleven days in the first 30sec., then three quicker runs to March 25th:

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Hum nice clip Anak that is the northern hemisphere I take it? am just wondering how to see it down here in the south

IC, I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but now that PANSTARRS is viewable in the Northern hemisphere it is no longer visible in the South. Your time was from the Holidays last year to the end of February.

For more on this scroll down to right before the comments section:

Jan. 12, 2013: Comet falling behind predictions? Now that Comet PanSTARRS is out of conjunction with the Sun for Southern Hemisphere observers,

Source: Updates on Comet PanSTARRS - SkyTel Beyond the Page - SkyandTelescope.com

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Anak said:

IC, I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but now that PANSTARRS is viewable in the Northern hemisphere it is no longer visible in the South. Your time was from the Holidays last year to the end of February.

For more on this scroll down to right before the comments section:

Jan. 12, 2013: Comet falling behind predictions? Now that Comet PanSTARRS is out of conjunction with the Sun for Southern Hemisphere observers,

Source: Updates on Comet PanSTARRS - SkyTel Beyond the Page - SkyandTelescope.com

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Yes mate looks like I just missed it from this Pictures: Comet Pan-STARRS Debuts in Southern Hemisphere that telescope is about 65 kms away from me and I would have seen it easy from the top of the hill out of town. Mind you we have had some bad weather just lately maybe I would have been out of luck anyway

I'll go take a look this evening anyhow just in case it might have gone into reverse by mistake you know what those auto transmissions are like eh?? :roflmao:

I was expecting a view like that shot from Parkes Radio Observatory the other night, but saw nothing.

I'm not sure if it could be attributed to light pollution or the unsteady "Astronomical Seeing" caused by the windy conditions that were from the West at 14mph, gusting to 30.
Temps were; 35°, Dew point 11°, wind chill 25°, but mate, it sure felt colder than that! :shock:

I checked last night, but the clouds were building all day and I didn't have any good "seeing". My next best shot is Sunday night, but the forecast doesn't look to good, its snowing lightly now (Sat. morning-16th), and there are two more "Alberta Clippers" coming towards us, Monday into Tuesday, and Thursday.
Maybe the 1st day of Spring (Wednesday the 20th) will be okay.

I took a few pics from last Saturday the 9th and last night. Last Saturday was really good, but the first pic shows what I'm up against.

Link to my PANSTARRS album.
Sunset Comet - NASA Science

Been fairly clear here , much to my joy. Very nice with binoculars, have to drive a bit (in city limits now), but not far. Maybe rain coming tonight but as of now..... beautiful skies here,hoping moisture holds off till after midnight. May be my last chance for a while as the road beckons.

The clouds moved in and rain last night. Rain today also, doesn't look good for my comet watch outing. Oh well. I'm one of those who are always "looking up" so I'm sure I'll see something great this year. Still have vivid memories of a fireball splitting in two "over the midway" after we closed one night in South Carolina a couple of years back. Spectacular!

Memories are the substance of Faith...

I remember a remark made one time that Winter is the worse season for sky-watchers located in the northern half of the States because of the weather, and I also believe in the adage of "Keep looking up", but my heart has been broken many a time.
It is the reason I have reservations about Comet ISON's appearance in the Fall.

Memories are the substance of Faith.

I was observing satellite passes one night in the Southwestern sky, when out of an azimuth of 243°, I observed a point of reddish-yellow light that intensified to at least magnitude 1, maybe greater, and grew to several Full Moon widths.

As it grew I observed it starting to emanate flame like structures like one would see in a large bonfire, and it looked like it was tumbling. I was awe-struck as I watched this object soar across the night sky like a flaming chariot and extinguish itself within seconds towards a Southeast azimuth of 129°.

My mind started to race in trying to understand what I had just saw, I checked the web-sites I know of that could tell me of satellites or rocket booster's that were on a course of disintegration in the Earth's atmosphere, but there was nothing listed for that date or time, and to this day I can only surmise that it was some man-made object that I watched fall to its untimely end.

Some lingering questions I have about this incident:

• Why was I privileged to observe this?
• What impact did it have on me?
• Will I remember this incident moments before I come to my eventual end?
• Is the entity that most people believe in at work here or does that entity only exist in my consciousness?

It has been 17years since I made this observation, and I will always remember it.

While I have never seen anything that bright or that .... amazing , which this obviously was (read the envy in my post) I have seen probably more than my share of night sky wonders. One of the first I can really trace my love of (extremely) amateur astronomy to was way back in ....... early 70's. I had been east (Pennsylvania I think), and was heading back home in Denver, Colorado. I was pretty much a "hippie" back then , so was hitchhiking and got a ride with a Blacksmith, yep a real one wanting to relocate in the Mountains of Colorado. He was drunk, and still drinking (warm PBR, funny how you remember details like that). Picked me up in eastern Kansas a little west of K.C. in the late, late afternoon. On the radio, I remember hearing that tonight was the peak night of the Perseid meteor shower that year and was predicted to be one of the best ever for whatever reason (but there was a reason). Well, I was mostly worried that this guy would kill us because the farther west we got the drunker he became. I finally got him to stop at a rest area somewhere in west Kansas and he immediately passed out over the steering wheel. And then.......... then I took my sleeping bag and went to lay out on a picnic table because I was exhausted. From hitchhiking, from stress/worry, and lol, hunger as I had been living on very short rations for about a week. And then, my goodness the sky was alive! I mean ALIVE with meteorites! I tried counting them but they were falling too fast for that! Hundreds if not thousands..... right there..... in front of me. Mostly the small white streaks, but inter-spread with larger red trails. The most amazing show I'd ever seen and it remains so to this day. While there was no huge fireballs there were literally more than you could take in. I sat there wrapped up in my sleeping bag until it started to get light and still couldn't sleep because of the immensity of what I was seeing and saw. I wanted to wake everyone up to look at this marvelous, once in a lifetime show that they were missing but restrained myself. I've been a astronomy buff to this day because of what I witnessed that night and wouldn't trade the memory of it for anything. I've seen bigger meteors since, and two major fireballs (the one in S.C. I mentioned and another in the Everglades) but never anything even close to that storm of lights from the sky. Have owned telescopes, mostly refractors but one (my pride and joy) 8 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain that I bought as a gift to myself,for the best night I ever had in the carnival business (up to that time). The things I saw through that (the Pleiades "up close"!!!!) were/are fantastic, but nothing will ever replace the joy and wonder I got from my naked eye view of the sky falling down in western Kansas that night.

A wonderful telling of one of your life experiences! I used to be a hippie once,

My best experience with meteor showers would come nowhere close to that (envy). My best so far was about 30 per hour.


Keep an eye out, I received this Auroral Alert today, I tried the forecast link, but it was timing out probably because of heavy site traffic. If you do link-up you can change the coverage area by clicking on one of the maps to the left and it will refresh to that area, and give a brief synopsis of how far South the aurora can be seen:

[email protected]
10:59 AM (11 hours ago)

to gse-aa

Auroral activity is very high right now due to a solar event on March 15, 2013. Activity should be high for a day or two.
Watch the short term forecast at http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast.
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I also use this link for tracking: Space Weather Warnings Currently in Effect Click anywhere in the colored bars and an explanation will appear.

Dammnit, I'll only be in the northern hemisphere by end of April. Moving back to Germany.

Dam-in-it? Chill EL7, chill.

With Germany's lowest point in Latitude around 47°. How do you figure Germany is in the Southern Hemisphere?



The rule of thumb is "the mouth of the Amazon river lies on the Equator".

I'm going to look if you could see PANSTARRS from Germany in May, back in a few....

Haha no, I'm living in South Africa, but am moving to Germany end of April.