Astroblog: First Images of Deep Impact's encounter

Monday, July 04, 2005

First Images of Deep Impact's encounter

Some fantastic images are coming out of the Deep Impact mission. Pop over to the Deep Impact site itself for some of the latest mission images. These are raw images as well, when porcessed there will be a much better degree of detail. It's all a bit yahoo and laddish at the moment, but when everything is settled dow there will be some serious science happening. We will have the first spectra of the sub-crustal surface of a comet, and the most detailed close-ups. New Scientist Space and Spaceflight Now have some nice images. The Planetary Society has a great video of the approach and impact. Hubble got into the act as well.

Ground based telescopes were not left out. Kitt peak has some nice before and after shots. Charles Sturts telescope web feed is running now, and there is an archive of shots to look at as well. Reports are that the comet has increased in magnitude from 10 to between 8 and 7, well within the reach of small telescopes (as a fuzzy dot anyway). So I'm going out to look now.