PDA

View Full Version : More Smokey Comet



AstroTasmania
January 17th, 2007, 06:56 PM
To-night the sky is cloud covered, so no sunsets and comet pics, however, the smoke in the atmosphere is producing some really weird all over sky glows.

As I took shots of the Comet last night, the effects changed the lower the comet moved. Here are some results.

The comet was certainly less brilliant than two days ago (must be our bushfire smoke polluted skies) A report I read indicates that this comet is moving much faster than usual. See attached from an experience comet observer.

: C/2006 P1 is the fastest moving comet I've come across in my past
> seven years of comet imaging. On Jan 15 at 0000 UT its motion
> relative to the stars was 9.67 arc seconds per minute. Most comets
> are of the order of 1 to 2 arc seconds per minute at their
> brightest. I check http://scully.harvard.edu/~cgi/MPEph2.COM to get
> the relative motion before I image so I can calculate how long I can
> expose without blurring the comet.
>
> Dennis Persyk
> Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
> Hampshire, IL


Clear skies...

Radar
January 17th, 2007, 09:19 PM
I just walked out the front of my house, didn't think I'd be able to see it, but I was way wrong.

I feel that the image I had of it tonight, was better than what I saw last night. Maybe the seeing was a little better from inland, because we had some pretty rough see breezes over the last two nights at the beach. What I saw tonight (I feel) was more spectacular than last night. Maybe this is also caused by it being higher in the sky.

Either way, this comet is a winner!

Tenacious Del
January 17th, 2007, 11:02 PM
I think it looked very bright tonight as well. Personally I can't see it fading at all. I think it is because it is higher in the sky.