Astroblog: Comet Elenin Fades Even More

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Comet Elenin Fades Even More

The latest image of Elenin from Michael Mattiazzo (Sept 14th, taken under difficult circumstances0, show a much reduced comet which has faded to magnitude 10 or so. It is doubtful that it will be bright enough to see in the SOHO LASCO cameras. We will probably have to wait until October for powerful Earth-based telescopes to try and find if any of the comet survives.

UPDATE: Comet Al reports that Elenin is still visible in the STEREO HI1A imager, see his animation in Flickr. He estimates the comet is around magnitude 11 or so, pretty much agreeing with Michael's earth-bound estimates.

Labels: comets

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:31 am

Comments:

Hello, Mr. Musgrave. My name is Francis Walsh. I was wondering if you could be available for a 15 minute interview on Saturday about 1PM local Australia time? I am hosting a panel about Comet Elenin. I wonder if you would be available for me to ask you a question or to at that time.

Francis Walsh
awewriter@gmail.com

# posted by

awewriter : 6:43 am

Elenin is still detectable in STEREO HI1A imager. See link.
http://flic.kr/p/anic1K

# posted by

CometAl : 11:01 am

Great animation Alan, you say it's about magnitude 11-12? This pretty well fits in with what Michael Mattiazzo is seeing in terms of Earth bound magnitude. It isn't going to show up in LASCO C3 then is it.

# posted by

Ian Musgrave : 11:08 am

I'm curious. Why is there such a great interest in a fading comet?

# posted by