This morning the discovery of new comet was announced that might become very bright in November and December 2013.
Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was found by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the 16" f3 reflector of the International Scientific Optical Network located near Kislovodsk, Russia. At Discovery on September the comet, although only magnitude 18, was located 6.3 AU from the sun between the orbit's of Jupiter and Saturn. What makes this an exciting object is that the comet will pass just 0.012 AU from the sun on November 28, 2013, potentially making it very bright. Unfortunately, for southern hemisphere observers the viewing circumstances are poor, although there might be some opportunities to see the brightening comet low in the morning sky as it approaches perihelion and perhaps - if it gets bright enough - in the daytime near the sun.
It must be also pointed out the use of the word "might" here since there is a tremendous amount of unpredictability this far out
Terry
Last edited by CometGuy; 26-09-2012 at 11:56 AM.
Reason: Few typos
Could this be viewable up north, say Cairns? Or is it too early to tell
I'd be keen to make the trip I think, I just love those comets.
If the tail was long enough and bright enough you might get a view of it from Cairns in late morning twilight in the east after perihelion, making a fairly low angle to the horizon. But as Terry said, there's a fair way to go yet - this is a preliminary orbit. Also, end of November into early December will be into the Wet, maybe Liz could assess the chances of actually getting clear skies.
If the tail was long enough and bright enough you might get a view of it from Cairns in late morning twilight in the east after perihelion, making a fairly low angle to the horizon. But as Terry said, there's a fair way to go yet - this is a preliminary orbit. Also, end of November into early December will be into the Wet, maybe Liz could assess the chances of actually getting clear skies.
Cheers -
Yes, the weather could be tricky, but hopefully there will be a period of time where it will be bright, and it cant be cloudy evvvvery day!!
I wonder the chances of it fizzing out into the Sun???
I am heading to Samoa early November for my nieces wedding, and well, could mosey on up North from there, very tempted. Think I need to buy lots of lotto tickets!!
The orbit is quite certain as there are two sets of observations that extend the calculation arc to 9 months.
I'm looking forward to seeing how bright the comet is about this time next year. That will give us a good idea as to how it will perform on the "inner leg" of its orbit.
Next years total eclipse is on Nov 3rd, and in the northern hemispehere. The comet would need to be very bright to be visible during totality as it's only a hybrid with a small umbra. But you never know your luck. Fingers and toes crossed.
I'll be on a luxury 95 passenger yacht in the mid-Atlantic to intercept the eclipse.
Joe Cali
Some reports have suggested the comet could be as bright as magnitude -11 or even -16, making it more than 1000 times brighter than the planet Venus and almost as bright as a full Moon.
"It's an unknown," says Hartley. "It could be a dazzler or a complete washout, that's the problem with comets like this one."
I will be well chuffed if it got anywhere as bright as this, the weather will be perfect here in November (dry season).
I like the phrase "Some reports " or "It has been said " meaning that you can make something up with no evidence and pass it as fact! i.e "some reports suggested the comet be as bright as mag -11 to -16"
Does anyone know what constellation(s) it will be in when it potentially peaks? I can only find vague references to it being favourable for northern hemisphere observers.
CdC/Stellarium/C2A/TheSky/... will predict it for you. Using the current orbital elements on Nov 3 2013 it will be in Leo, mag ~6 and 50 deg from the sun.
CdC/Stellarium/C2A/TheSky/... will predict it for you. Using the current orbital elements on Nov 3 2013 it will be in Leo, mag ~6 and 50 deg from the sun.
I went and tried the Import objects following the excellent How To given to me earlier in another comet thread, and it could not find Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). This was in a search under the MPC orbital window, and I tried 'Import All' as well. Is it not in there yet?
I went and tried the Import objects following the excellent How To given to me earlier in another comet thread, and it could not find Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). This was in a search under the MPC orbital window, and I tried 'Import All' as well. Is it not in there yet?
Odille, what program are you using? C/2012 S1 is in the current "MPEC list of observable comets" and TheSky6, C2A, CdC and Stellarium find it. Don't use the Stellarium individual object lookup. The numbers it gets at the moment appear to be strange.
Once you find it, go to Nov 24 1023, 05:10:00 and you'll see Mercury, Saturn, C/2012 S1, 2P/Enke, P/2011 B1 and 33311 Deucalion within a 7x7 degree area.
Last edited by mithrandir; 28-09-2012 at 09:37 AM.
It's going to be well worth considering good responses to claims of the comet becoming brighter than the Full Moon. Have already seen a number of mentions of this on the Internet - somebody, somewhere has suggested it might make mag -16, which is ludicrous. But lots of people are now taking it as a proper prediction. With a more realistic forecast maybe being McNaught scale and if we're lucky a bit brighter, it would be good to get people to keep a sense of perspective! Otherwise there'll be a lot of disappointed people out there who won't trust astronomers so much. But the media do so love a dramatic 'story'...
"McNaught" scale would be awesome, I got a few great pix of McNaught when it passed through. Fingers crossed it comes close to that and we at least get a glimpse down here in southern climes.