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Subscribe to RSSHot on the heels of a NASA probe's encounter with a comet, yet another glowing iceball is causing a sensation among astronomers. Comet Ikeya-Murakami, in the constellation Virgo, appears to be in the midst of an eye-catching outburst.
It can't be caught with the naked eye. The shooting star was discovered just a week ago by Japanese amateur astronomers Kaoru Ikeya and Shigeki Murakami, and it's currently receding from the sun. But skywatchers are getting some great views of comet and its unconventional tail through remote-controlled telescopes. The pictures show a long tail and a rapid brightening, perhaps due to the explosive collapse of a structure within the comet.
Joseph Brimacombe's Flickr animation, seen in the video clip above, loops together time-lapse photos that show the comet moving across the night sky over New Mexico. Brimacombe, who lives in Australia, was able to capture the imagery thanks to the New Mexico Skies remote-telescope setup.
Italian astronomers Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero used imagery from the remote-controlled GRAS Observatory in New Mexico to create their own animation, which appears to show bright material flashing away from the nucleus. You can see a still frame at right, and clicking on the link in the caption will bring up the full animation from SpaceWeather.com.
Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin processed his imagery from a remote telescope in New Mexico, using a Larson Sekenina filter, to bring out two symmetrical jets streaming from the comet nucleus ... or nuclei. "I saw an excellent inner coma, which looks like the mini-version of the 17P/Holmes comet after its powerful outburst in 2007," Elenin told me in an e-mail.
SpaceWeather.com provides additional views of the comet, plus a handy sky map in case you want to pull out your binoculars or telescope and try looking fof it early Thursday. It should be hanging close to Saturn in eastern skies, just before dawn. "Set your alarm and happy hunting!" SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips says.
More sights worth seeing:
- Folks are starting to put together 3-D views of Comet Hartley, based on imagery sent back by NASA's Deep Impact / EPOXI probe. SpaceWeather.com passes along a cross-eyed stereo view from Hanno Falk as well as a red-blue anaglyph from Belgium's Patrick Vantuyne. The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla posted a red-blue animation from Daniel Machacek and Luca Cassio. (You'll need red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect.)
- Six months ago, astronomers were intrigued by the disappearance of a white cloud stripe on Jupiter, known as the Southern Equatorial Belt or SEB. Now Christopher Go, a Jupiter-watching astronomer in the Philippines, is seeing evidence of the SEB's return. "We can expect impressive and rapidly changing disturbances over the next three months," SpaceWeather.com quotes John Rogers, director of the Jupiter section of the British Astronomical Association, as saying.
Update for 2:30 a.m. ET Nov. 11: Thanks to Daniel Fischer for pointing out there's not much chance of Comet Ikeya-Murakami brightening at this point.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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A second comet this year. Must be the end of the world.
Too bad we didn't have a probe in place to get some close-ups of this one.
What makes you think that this comet would brighten? It peaked at the outburst around Nov. 2 - that led to its discovery (visually by the way, a rarity these days) - and has since been fading away, at below 9th magnitude right now. Combined with its proximity to the Sun, it's a difficult object and more something for specialists (who are also those delivering the great images).
Aha, thanks for the caveat, Daniel... will revise.
horizons by genesis nice touch
"The shooting star was discovered just a week ago"
It's not a "shooting star" (a meteor), it's a comet.
C/2010V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) was faintly observed from a semi sea-level Dark-Site at Wellington's Petone Foreshore, (Geo-Coder V2.5 co-ordinates = -41.23677, + 174.89576), looking SE towards the heads of the Wellington Harbour. 10x90 Binoculars were used, as was an 11.5cm f8 Newtonian at 50x (18mm Brass Erfle with 72 arcminute FOV at 50x... the famous Peter Read eyepiece)!
Comet appeared already (2 days after discovery) to be in a major outburst... an oval shaped inner coma was observed at 50x with an 11.5cm f8 Newtonian and 72 arcmin FOV.
Three days later on the 8th November:- the comet seemed to outbust again... at 100x, the inner coma was measured at 2.5' x 2.0' (the inner coma had altered in aspect ratio", from 4:3, to 5:4). On November 12.66UT, this aspect ratio had changed again, to 8:5. Overseas claims have been made for a tail in recent days, by photographic and CCD observers, but I've noticed none visually myself, to mid 9th magnitude. I suspect that any tail images were obtained by CCD, that were say, about Mv 12.
Please understand, that my own observations were made under extreme and marginal conditions. At my southern latitude, Saturn rises some 70-75minutes before the Sun, and the dawn twilight is some 40-45minutes in length. I have consistently had only a decent window of barely 10 minutes to capture the comet... (and then barely), before advancing dawn "bleaches out" my night sky!
To date, I appear to be the only Australasian observer of this comet. Some 340+ comets ago, in 1965, I was priviledged to see Ikeya-Seki 1965f. That was my first and UNFORGETTABLE comet... the famous "Sun Grazer"!
So far, to date (November 12.66UT), C/2010V1 has flared up, another half magnitude since the 9th, and now sits at Mv 8.3 in 10x90 Binoculars and 8.5 in my 11.5cm f8 Newtonian at 100x.
For Southern hemispshere observers you need to....
1. Locate the Southern Cross.
2. Drop down to Corvus.
3. Locate Venus, then Spica (Alpha Virginis).
4. Locate Saturn... the planet with the rings!
5. Offset a few scant degrees from Saturn to find C/2010V1 (Ikeya-Murukami).
6. "Astrosite Groningen" (Reinder Bouma and Edwin Van Dijk) have just posted a wide field FinderChart for 5 to 14 November for this comet with TK comparison Stars. USE IT!
The following (abbreviated and incomplete) data, may be of interest...
NOV 05.67UT Mv=7.8 d=3' DC=5 10x 10x90B (Comet ~ 2 deg from Saturn).
05.67UT Mv=8.0 d=3.4' DC=4 50x 11.5cm f8 L (Inner coma = 2.0' x 1.5').
06.67UT Mv=8.4 d=3' DC=4 10x 10x90B (Comet ~ 1 deg SW of Saturn).
06.67UT Mv=8.5 d=4.0' DC=3 50x 11.5cm f8 L
08.66UT Mv=8.6 d= 3' DC= 5 10x 10x90B
08.66UT Mv=8.8 d=4.2' DC=4 100x 11.5cm f8 L (Inner coma= 2.5' x 2.0').
09.66UT Mv= 8.8 d= 3' DC=3 10x 10x90B
09.66UT Mv=9.0 d=5.6' DC=2 100x 11.5cm f8 L (Comet ~ 2 deg from NGC4697).
12.66UT Mv=8.3 d= 6' DC=6/7 10x 10x90B (very strong coma seen:- outburst).
12.66UT Mv=8.5 d=7.4' DC=6 100x 11.5cm f8 L (Inner coma = 3.0' x 2.5')
Regards and clear skies from New Zealand!
Graham W. Wolf
2010 George Alcock Astronomer
(graham.w.wolf@gmail.com)
Greetings all... now that I've just been admitted to this hallowed conclave....
Will attempt to keep you up to date, with any binocular viewable comets, that can be observed from the Southern hemisphere.
You may wish to locate PROCYON (Alpha Canis Minor) and offset some 12-14 deg vertically above this star to notice a bright 6- 6.5 Mv comet called 103p/Hartley 2. You may have noticed a recent photo posted by NASA showing a dumbell shaped comet (much smaller than p/1 Halley!!), with huge rather energetic "multi-jetting" from the top upper right corner. For Southern hemisphere observers:- PROCYON is a bright star located below and to the right of the ORION (The Hunter)constellation. It's some 30 deg or so directly below SIRIUS (the Dog Star). Sorry, but this website doesn't permit uploading of photos... so, visit "Sky and Telescope" website, to see for yourself. The JPEG is quite impressive and beats the Halley-Giotto images from March 1986!
Get to a Dark Site (golf course/ beach/ what have you, and spend at least 30 minutes in the dark, with no artificail lighting:- getting "dark adapted".... 45 to 60 mins is perfect for this. 7x50 Binoculars are great (7 deg FOV), 10x50s are 5deg FOV, and 20x50s are typically 3deg FOV. DO TRY 11x80s or even "monster" 20x 100s (if you can get your hands on one). FOV is typically some 2 to 3 degs, here.
My own 10x90 UWF Binocs have a 5deg FOV.
Use low telescope powers to zero in on the comet... a 25 or 30mm Plossl is fine, an Erfle or similar 60-70 deg AF eyepiece is better. If you have a Nagler eyepiece:- (82 deg AF),then just simply GO-FOR-IT!
Both my 11.5cm f8, and 18cm 5 Newtonians have an EFL of 900mm. I use Kellners, Plossls, and an old Brass Erfle (the Peter Read... (my astro-hero)... Eyepiece)! For British... read Sir Patrick Moore, for Canadians... read David Levy, for Australians... read John Tebbutt or Bill Bradfield!
You can (roughly) work out the size of the comet tail, by working out the FOV, and interpolating the field. Let's try a personal example:-
Peter Read Eyepiece is an 18mm Erfle with 60 deg AF.
900/18 = 50x 60AF/50x = 72 arminute field FOV (just under 1 1/4 deg). Full Moon= 1/2 deg).
If the tail occupied just 1/4 of the field, then 72/4 = 18 arcminutes long.
OK, it's a much smaller tail. Pop in a 2x Barlow. Now we get 100x and 36 arcminute FOV.
If the tail takes up 1/3 of the field... tail is 12 arcminutes long....
If it's 1/4 of the field, the tail is 9 arcminutes long
If it's 1/6 of the field, then the tail is 5 arcminutes long.
Pretty simple isn't it?
Use the largest aperture scope you can beg or borrow.... maybe now's the time to visit your local public observatory and ask them to show tyat comet to you. When I was a full-time professional astronomer at my nation's national observatory in the 90's... I frequently got such public "requests", and was only too happy to oblige!
"Google" the following websites below; to get some helpful "starter's info on Comet observing, when and where in the night sky to locate them, and how to observe them, reliably. If you know a local amateur astronomer say... just a few streets away, or across town... then now would be a good time to chat them up, and get them to share some scope time with you.
SORRY, I'm stuck here in NZ... but you get the "drift"!
Sky and Telescope
BAA Comet Section
Astrosite Groningen
Clear skies and good fun!
Graham Wolf
2010 George Alcock Astronomer