Mt Whitney Webcam
Mt Williamson Webcam
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 155 guests, and 16 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Comet week
#30199 03/08/13 11:05 PM
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,505
Likes: 103
S
Steve C Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,505
Likes: 103
Lynn-a-roo forwarded this to me:

Quote:
Friends,

Next week is comet week. Two comets will be coming into view, Lemmon and Panstarr. Lemmon is the dimmer of the two and may not be naked eye visible from north of the equator. Panstarr more than likely will.

Comet Panstarr has already made its close encounter with earth, missing us buy around 100 million miles. It swings around the sun on Sunday March 10 getting a little closer to the sun than the planet Mercury (28 million miles). At this time is will be at its brightest and not visible to anyone as it is to close to the sun. On March 12 and 13 should be the best viewing just after sunset. It will be near the crescent moon to help locate it. Each night there after it will be higher in the sky, but getting dimmer as it moves away from the sun. If you have binoculars it will help you see it in the twilight. As the sky darkens it should be easily visible to the eye (with comets, nothing is a guarantee). The photos attached will help you get an idea of where to look and what we might see. The further north of the equator, the better the viewing. On the first two nights the higher you are to get a clear view of the horizon will make for better viewing.

Have fun.

Pictures:

Lemmon & Panstarr: Photo taken from the desert of Chile. Lemmon is in the upper left.



Projected Panstarr Viewing: The position of Panstarr and moon in the western sky.



Panstarr March 12: Best estimated as to what we may see this night.



Panstarr March 13: Same as above this date.

Re: Comet week
Steve C #30263 03/12/13 08:09 PM
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 558
Offline
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 558
No sighting here in Bakersfield. Just have to hope for a good show this November.

Re: Comet week
RoguePhotonic #30267 03/12/13 09:05 PM
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 632
Offline
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 632
RoguePhotonic...5 miles from Disneyland....here in So. Cal...same news...no sightings of the comets. Will check the skies again tomorrow night. We used binoculars.


Lynnaroo
Re: Comet week
lynn-a-roo #30280 03/13/13 12:34 PM
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
Offline
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
shamelessly stolen from the Nikon forum at Fredmiranda.com - looks better over there because this forum resizes the images and turns them fuzzy

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1196889




Re: Comet week
Fishmonger #30281 03/13/13 12:44 PM
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
Offline
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
watch on vimeo for HD version

Comet PanSTARRS - The Movie from Fred Espenak

and another

Comet PanSTARRS and the Moon from Fred Espenak


Re: Comet week
Fishmonger #30290 03/13/13 04:25 PM
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,505
Likes: 103
S
Steve C Offline OP
OP Offline
S
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 8,505
Likes: 103
Thanks for posting those pictures. I went to see what the Whitney webcam might have taken. I found one at 7:15 PM with the sliver of the moon lightly visible. But the picture didn't show the full circle of the moon like the pics above to. So looking to the left of the moon on the picture, I could not find any trace of the comet.

I've uploaded it, so you can see for yourself:   http://www.whitneyzone.com/webcam/20130312191440.jpg

Re: Comet week
Steve C #30293 03/13/13 06:24 PM
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
Offline
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
I think the shots and the video taken in Texas are at a later time in the day, since the mountains there nowhere near as tall as Whitney seen from Lone Pine.

Re: Comet week
Fishmonger #30401 03/18/13 10:31 AM
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
Offline
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,034
just saw this - I guess this was just a warmup comet:

"NASA has brought together a small team of experts to organize an observing campaign for Comet ISON, which could potentially shine as brightly as the moon when it makes its closest pass by the sun in late November if the most optimistic scenarios play out."

http://www.space.com/20260-comet-ison-nasa-campaign.html


Re: Comet week
Fishmonger #30417 03/19/13 01:21 PM
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 632
Offline
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 632
My friend who told me about Comet Week said he viewed the comet every night last week by standing on the roof of the Tustin, CA Amtrak Station...how he got permission for standing up there I have no idea unless he belongs to an astronomy club that got permission.

He also said the view from the station roof of the former Tustin Air Base blimp hangars was pretty awesome too.

He's a hard core astronomer. He travels all over the world to see an eclipse such as from the equator and every place else you can imagine. From what I can gather from him there are a lot of people just like him and they all travel to gaze at the stars, moon, etc. from different vantage points all over the world.


Last edited by lynn-a-roo; 03/19/13 01:23 PM.

Lynnaroo

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4
(Release build 20200307)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.4.33 Page Time: 0.024s Queries: 32 (0.019s) Memory: 0.6130 MB (Peak: 0.6951 MB) Data Comp: Off Server Time: 2024-03-28 18:38:12 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS