Saturday, February 08, 2014
New Comet C/2014 C2 STEREO (congratulations Comet Al)
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| Comet C/2014 C2 in the STEREO H1 A instrument on 2/2/14, arrowed. The vertical lines are instrument artefacts. Click to embiggen | animation of 24 images from 2/2/14 to3/2/14 showing the rapid motion of the comet, click to embiggen. |
Unfortunately, the comet will now only be visible from the northern hemisphere, and will be very low above the horizon at astronomical twilight from around February 14. It will probably be very faint, around magnitude 13 or less. This makes it a very difficult target.
The comet was visible in the southern hemisphere in the evening, but was low on the horizon around astronomical twilight from January 1, and may have been too faint to observe. But Australian observers should check their images from this time.
MPEC one line Ephermeris
CK14C020 2014 02 18.6577 0.508074 1.000000 57.5181 283.3470 135.3097 18.5 8.0 C/2014 C2 (STEREO)
Orbital elements:
C/2014 C2 (STEREO)
T 2014 Feb. 18.65769 TT MPC
q 0.5080744 (2000.0) P Q
Peri. 57.51809 -0.45953242 -0.56620958
Node 283.34701 -0.84240966 +0.52195234
e 1.0 Incl. 135.30975 +0.28138215 +0.63794394
From 77 observations 2014 Feb. 1-4.
Labels: comet, Comet Al, iTelescope, Stereo Satellite
Monday, November 18, 2013
STEREO catches Comet C/2012 S1 ISON firing up.
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| Comet C/2012 S1 ISON imaged in the STEREO satellites H2A instrument from 13 November to 14 November. 3 comets, Mercury and a variable star are labelled so you know where to look in the animation.Click to embiggen | 19 Images stacked in ImageJ and assembled into an animation. You will need to click on the image to embiggen it, so that you can see ISON, Lovejoy and 2P/Enke clearly. |
My Earth based ISON campaign is over, ISON is too deep in the twilight for me to see from Adelaide (despite trying very hard), and it is now below the lower limit of travel of the iTelescopes.
But STEREO still delivers. ISON is currently visible in the H2A instrument of STEREO, along with C/2013 R1 Lovejoy, 2P/Enke and 2013 V3 Nevski (there's also a variable star winking on and off).
An enlarged, inverted version of the above animation is to the left. Comet Al does a much better version where you can see the tail clearly.
Labels: 2P Encke, C/2012 S1 ISON, C/2013 R1, Comet Al, Stereo Satellite
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Comet C/2011 PanSTARRS in STEREO, 13-14 March 2013
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Comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS from 18:29 UT on 13 March. A Coronal Mass Ejection is billowing out tworads the comet. The bright object to the upper right is Earth, the vertical spikes image artefacts. Click to embiggen. Image credit NASA/STEREO | An image from earlier in the sequences from the H1B imager I've used the difference method in ImageJ to enhance the dust features in the tail, the CME and the ion spikes. Thanks CometAl for the suggestion Click to embiggen |
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| C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS on the 14th. Click to embiggen. Getting the dust stream brightness balance is not easy. | A blast from the past, this is comet C/2006 P1 McNaught, the most impressive comet we've had in a long time, as seen in the H1B imager. It also had impressive dust steamers. |
Previous images are here and here.
Here's a YouTube Animation for the 13th.
And another for the 14th.
Labels: comet, Comet Al, comets, Stereo astronomy, Stereo comet astronomy, Stereo Satellite
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Comet C/2012 V4 in STEREO 10-11 December 2012
Comet C/2012 V4 is a recently discovered comet that has been tentatively identified with a return of the comet D/1827 M1 (Pons-Gambart). It is very low in the sky, and difficult to image with earth bound telescopes. It crossed into the STEREO H1B imager on December 10, and exited shortly after December 12.
I combined images from the 10 and 11 to make the animation below. CometAl thinks its magnitude is around 4, see his images and animation here.
See my previous post with the comet in H2B.
Labels: comet, Comet Al, comets, Stereo Satellite
Sunday, November 25, 2012
More Solar Eclipse Goodness
Just thought I should mention CometAl's excellent account of his partial solar eclipse experience.
Labels: Comet Al, eclipse, solar, Sun
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Cool stories about Pluto and the Sun
Over at the Conversation Jonti Horner writes about the New Horizons mission to Pluto and what the new Moon of Pluto means for it.
CometAl shows off some of his latest, stunning images from Helioviewer, (with tips on how you can do it too).
CometAl shows off some of his latest, stunning images from Helioviewer, (with tips on how you can do it too).
Labels: Comet Al, Conversation, Pluto, Sun
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Comet Al and the recovery of C/2003 T12
A while back I reported on the recovery of comet C/2003 T13 SOHO (now renamed to P/2012 A3 SOHO). Now Comet Al has blogged about his experience here, accompanied by some great shots taken with iTelescope T11, a masterful piece of astrophotography where the comet is right on the limit of twilight.
Labels: comet, Comet Al, comets, iTelescope
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