Comet Lovejoy

[REVEREND]

Hi all. As I am new to the night skies, I don't understand all the names for the stars etc. I only know things like ...the southern cross and the pointers, saucepan, 7 sisters.etc. What I would like to know is..when c lovejoy is visible on the 29th Dec, what direction would I have to look to ( north, south etc ) from the south west of Western Australia.
Thanks.:)
Cheers Reverend.

[Hans Tucker]

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/binocular-comet-lovejoy-heading-c2014-q2-lovejoy-1211142/

[REVEREND]

Thanks Hans. I will do my best to try an understand it.
Cheers Reverend.

[Hans Tucker]

Since you said you can pick out the saucepan (Orion) and the seven sisters (pleiades) then this map might assist you.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/Lovejoy2_BW.pdf

You will have to orientate it upside down because it is for the Northern hemisphere but at the beginning of January it approaches near Orion and around 17-19 January it will be near Pleiades (Seven Sisters).

You might have a better chance of spotting the comet with a pair of binoculars. Just look for a fuzzy green star like object.

[REVEREND]

Thanks Hans. Naming the saucepan and the seven sisters has been a great help. Thanks again.
Cheers Reverend.

[Suzy]

Hi Reverend, IT'S VISIBILE NOW !

Yesterday I did a write up on it our facebook page.
If you don't have access to facebook, I'll copy & paiste below.
In particular, take a look at my easy guide to finding it in one of the links

174513
.

[REVEREND]

Thanks for that Suzy, as I don't do Faceless book..:)

Cheers Reverend.

[garin]

Hi Reverend
Here is a sky map for the 29th @ around 9pm Lovejoy is at the top of the map.
so look up to the East at around 60 degrees from the horizon.

I could see this in a 9x63 finderscope from the Perth northern suburbs so it's one of the easier comets to locate.

Good luck

[REVEREND]

Thanks Garin . Much appreciated.
Cheers Reverend.

[omegacrux]

Yes it is easy to find , found it in the 8x50 binos then in the ED80 with a 2in 30 mm ep that coincidental bought off Suzy!

David

[AG Hybrid]

Been looking at it now in the 12". It is amazing how bright it is here in the middle of Sydney. I can see the brightened core quite easily. Its going to look great from Wiruna this weekend.

[barx1963]

Very nice comet. Viewing at 150x in the 20". Bright with a lovely wide halo. Hint of a tail, but transparency is a bit dodgy here tonight so not really sure.
It was forming a nice obtuse triangle with 4 fairly faint stars which made it easy to see movement. Coming back to it 10 mins later it had clearly moved on.

Malcolm

[glenc]

http://theconversation.com/a-christmas-comet-to-be-seen-from-dark-skies-35629

Tanya Hill
(http://theconversation.com/profiles/tanya-hill-121214) Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy) at Museum Victoria

A Christmas comet to be seen from dark skies (http://theconversation.com/a-christmas-comet-to-be-seen-from-dark-skies-35629)

[REVEREND]

My eyes must be painted on, 'cause buggered if I could find it..:sadeyes:. I looked from 9 pm to just before 10.30 pm Western Standard Time. Would that be the right time for over here?. I will keep trying until I do.:)
Cheers Reverend.

[garin]

Hi Reverend,
That chart I posted was for the 29th December.
I have posted here a chart for tonight.
If you look to the right of the saucepan (Orion) you will see two bright stars (Sirius and Canopus) the comet is approximately halfway between these two stars at around 53 degrees off the horizon at 9pm

[REVEREND]

Thanks Garin. Can't wait..I will let you know how I go.
Cheers Reverend

[barx1963]

Silly question but what equipment are you using?

Malcolm

[REVEREND]

I thought I was the only one that asked them Malcolm.:)
I have 8X40 Nikon binoculars, and a Canon 7D with a 400 X 5.6 lens in case I see it and will attempt to take some pics.

Cheers Reverend.

[JB80]

I'm going to asses the situation tonight, it's only just starting to rise here in Spain and I'm not confident the positioning is great right now. I could commandeer my 3 y.o room but I'm fairly certain that isn't one of my better ideas at 2am.

[Suzy]

Reverend, don't give up. Maybe the sky transparency was very poor. Malcolm touched on this subject a bit. This is a big killer on comets. The last couple of times I haven't been able to see it either in my 10x40 binos and I know exactly where it is.
It's very hard to notice high cloud at night time.

David, I'm glad to hear you're still getting good use out of that eyepiece. :D

[REVEREND]

Thanks Suzy. I couldn't see it last night either, and I spent about an hour and a half looking ( my neck couldn't handle much longer.:)). I was wondering whether my bino's weren't strong enough. Does it look green like the pics on here are?

Cheers Reverend.

[glenc]

The Guide 9 map below shows Comet Lovejoy's path from tonight to Jan 4.
The map is the right way up at 9pm AEDT.
On 29 and 30 Dec the comet is near M79.
Rigel is 16.4 degrees to the left of the globular M79.

[barx1963]

Reverend
My guess is your expectations may be a little high as to what it will look like. In my 20" dob I couldn't see any colour, so you certainly won't. Also I reckon the halo that I could see was about 10' across, but i am picking up the fainter outer parts of the halo that 40mm bino objectives won't pick out.
Really what you are looking for is a "fuzzy" star when all the others look sharp, although Suzy may be able to give you a better handle on the image in binos similar to yours.

Cheers

Malcolm

[Blue Skies]

I just had a quick look at it tonight in my 10x50 binos and it was easy to find, quite large but very diffuse. I'm going to have to get my dob back together if I want to see any detail, I think. But I know what was around that area and what comets often look like (not much at all visually!) so I agree with the comment that expectations might be a bit high. But also I've found that if you're not used to seeing faint fuzzies I could place it right in the middle of the eyepiece for you and you still wouldn't see it! Its just a matter of educating your eyes and brain as to what to expect. Best to look at it as a small educational challenge - and one day down the track you'll be telling some other newby how you looked straight through it...

[barx1963]

Got my own binos out tonight just after midnight. Nearly directly overhead so 15x70s not easy to use but the comet was a very easy get. In the 20" the thin tail stretching away to the north was very obvious.

Malcolm

[glenc]

The comet was bright in 20x80 binoculars last night and some tail was visible. It clouded over before I had a chance to look at it with my telescope.

[REVEREND]

Thanks for all the input. Looks like I will have to invest in a new pair of binoculars..
Cheers Reverend.

[glenc]

Last night Comet Lovejoy was easily visible in my 50mm finder, it looked similar to the mag 4 globular cluster 47 Tuc.
In a 16" telescope the comet was about 12' across and the tail was approx. 1.5 degrees long.
The tail shows up well if you rock your telescope back and forth across it.

[Rob_K]

Doesn't quite work like that Malcolm. This comet has been well-observed visually by comet observers across the world and coma diameters up to 20' are being reported in binoculars (the general rule is that the smallest instrument capable of making the observation should be used so nearly all the formal observations being submitted now are binocular or naked-eye ones). Imaging shows a coma diameter well in excess of 20'.

As to colour, well it's an individual thing. I've seen several reports of colour put up by experienced comet observers. A group of us were viewing it at a club do here last Wednesday night and I asked the guys whether the comet showed any colour, as each one viewed it (through 8" SCT & 130mm reflector). No-one could make out any colour, including me.

But last Sunday I took out my newly-fixed telescope (just a finder scope issue) mid-evening and I was surprised to see a very distinct bluish-green tinge to it - 4.5" f8 reflector at 43x I should add. This tinge wasn't apparent in deep sky objects viewed before and after. Transparency wasn't fantastic unfortunately and later on when the sky cleared up I was too busy photographing and didn't bring the scope out. The only other comet I've ever seen colour in was C/2012 F6 (Lemmon), a similarly bright, very gassy comet. That one was confirmed 'independently' by another viewer (quite inexperienced) who was there, through the same scope and with no prompting ("OMG, it's green!!").

The light you see from the coma of this comet comes almost exclusively from broad diatomic carbon emissions in the blue-green end of the visible spectrum and is different from, say, a galaxy whose light comes from the collective continuum of billions of stars, or an emission nebula whose light comes from very narrow and specific emission bands, or the coma of a very dusty comet whose light comes from the reflection of our very own sunlight.

So there you have it Malcolm - since we'd both agree that magic doesn't exist, there must be a rational explanation within the laws of physics and the biology of the human eye. I don't think mass delusion would cut it, LOL! :lol: ;)

Cheers -

[cometcatcher]

This is about as close to a binocular view as I can show. It's a single frame from my short F5.5 ED80, which has about the same FOV as binoculars roughly. I've wound the saturation down to simulate a visual view.

[barx1963]

Thanks for that Rob
Had another look at it on Saturday and Sunday night. Interestingly this time the colour was obvious, but the transparency and seeing was nowhere is good as Friday night. So possible explanation is that I am so used to looking at DSO's and not expecting colour that I don't even see it when it is there!
With the diameter, my main purpose was to make sure that the OP had a more realistic idea of the size of the object rather than an exact measurement, hence my comment that in 10x40s he should be looking for a "fuzzy star".
You are certainly right about Comet Lemmon a couple of years ago, in my 20" it was really green.

Cheers

Malcolm

[Rob_K]

Cheers Malcolm! I'll admit that if I wanted a knock-out view of a comet however bright (but not too big!) I'd choose a 20" SDM over a 4.5" Tasco any day! However that's a pretty mono-dimensional view of astronomy and if I wanted to do accurate, formal comet observations I'd use the appropriate instrument, in this case binoculars, and naked-eye if it gets much brighter. The problem with big aperture on bright comets is that it distorts the relative magnitude in something called the "aperture effect". This can be corrected but probably not in such a mismatch as 20" versus binoculars! I'd also be extremely surprised if you're not actually seeing a vast coma through the 20", after all light is light! The problem may be that the gradient is imperceptible and there is no clear end to it - but there is a noticeable gradient change at similar diameter to what you reported. That should be clear to you and probably has the appearance of the limits of the coma. :shrug:

As far as the colour goes, the light-adapted human eye is optimised to 555nm (in the green) and this may assist in picking up greenish colour in bright comets in relatively small apertures.

Cheers -

[Suzy]

Reverend, your 8x40 binoculars should pick it up. As well as Glen, I too picked it up very easily in my 9x50 finder. It's quite large.

I can't make out any colour either thru binos or the scope but I'll keep trying. And no matter how many times I tapped the scope and used averted vision, I couldn't make out a tail - just an elongation. I measured the coma thru my 10" dob at 9' arc mins (close to your measurements Macolm!). Perhaps light pollution is a factor. Tho I was able to easily see the blue colour in comet ISON, under a street light.

Isn't it interesting how our eyes see either green or red, like in planetary nebs. I read somewhere it's to do with the makeup of our eyes :question:. For instance, I only ever see blue. Well... except Orion is green - that's the only green thing I've seen.

[glenc]

I just looked at Comet Lovejoy with 20x80 binoculars.
It was high in the sky (alt 80d) and 2.5 degrees of the comet's tail was visible.
The comet seems to be a bit fainter than 47 Tuc and larger than the globular.

[Mokusatsu]

Reverend, have you got a tablet like an iPad or Android?

Install one of the excellent astronomy apps like Redshift, Distant Suns or Star Walk. They have a mode that uses the compass etc to display the stars which are in front of you when you hold them up. Then when someone says "it's in Canis Major" your app will help you find it.

These apps are only a few dollars. Sky Walk HD is $1.29 right now for an XMas special.

They're enormously simpler to use (in my opinion) than maps, and certainly a lot more useful than "face North!"

[rustigsmed]

glen your comments echo my thoughts 100% after viewing last night. what a lovely sight.

[REVEREND]

Thanks everyone for all the good advice. My young bloke just downloaded a program called Google Sky Map on my phone ( as I don't have an ipad or the like ). I will study it up today and try it out tonight before I go owling..

Cheers Rev.

[inertia8]

Finally some good weather over Melbourne. Just had a look and found the comet easily (after a quick check in Sky Safari before headed outside).

Only have 8x42 Diamondback binos at present but nonetheless a good sight.

[hotspur]

Great map,very handy !!! will get the 15 by 80 Vixen Bino's out on the tripod soon.

Congratulations Terry,on your AMAZING work! and also all the imagers fine images of this comet,well done.

[glenc]

Comet Lovejoy is a naked eye object tonight, about mag 4.5.
It is slightly brighter than the mag 4.7 star Hipparcos number 24927.
In a 16" telescope the comet's coma is nearly 20' across.

[REVEREND]

Thanks Glen. That will be good as I couldn't see it with my binoculars..:)

Cheers Reverend.

[barx1963]

Had another look tonight, the moon is washing it out here, so I tried my smallest piece of gear, a pair of 8x24 Pentax binos. Easy to pick out, not very bright but on camparison with the moon in the same binos it is easily 20' wide now.

Malcolm

[glenc]

Comet Lovejoy is on the RHS of the star 5 Tau now, the comet is about magnitude 4 and its tail is more than 2 degrees long in 20x80 binoculars.

[glenc]

The comet is about magnitude 4.3 and its tail is about 2.3 degrees long now, using 20x80 binoculars.

[REVEREND]

Hi all. Thanks for all your help, ( as some one mentioned)but,I am still not sure if I have seen it or not. I have read that tonight should be a good night. In what direction from Pleiades would I look at 9 pm Busselton time ( sw of WA). Thanks again, but If I can't find it tonight , I might have to stick to photographing birds.:)

Cheers Reverend.

[barx1963]

I have attached a small chart showing it's current position and you should be able to find M45 (the Pleiades) and Aldebaran in Taurus easily enough and this should give an idea of the area of sky to scan. Just remember, you are not looking for something with a tail, just a fuzzy blob. it is probably only 20' wide. To give you an idea of size the Pleiades extend across nearly 2 degrees of sky so it is much smaller than they are.

Good luck with the search!!

Malcolm

[REVEREND]

Thanks Malcolm, much appreciated.
Cheers Reverend.

[glenc]

Raymond look up to the left of M45 (the 7 sisters) at 9pm, about 8 degrees up to the left.
If you hold your arm out and spread your fingers it is 20 degrees from your thumb to your little finger. Use binoculars in that area.

[REVEREND]

Thanks Glen. I reckon I might nail it tonight.

Cheers Reverend

[Misplaced]

Well I found it with the help of my good lady tonight :) Being partially sighted makes it difficult for me but a little assistance and it was cracked. only through binoculars as the scope was set up but not in the best position to see the comet. Fingers crossed I'll see it in the scope tomorrow night. I'll set the scope up in a better position :)

[REVEREND]

Yea haa, I found it. Thanks everyone.I think its pretty special, although not as good as his one a couple of years ago. Here is a pic I took.
Cheers Reverend.

[glenc]

Congratulations Raymond.

[REVEREND]

Thanks Glen.
I was chuffed to see it , let alone get a pic of sorts..

Cheers Reverend.

[Suzy]

Congratulations Raymond! And well done on the lovely pic- something to treasure. :D

Since it reached peak brightness last week, I've been able to see the green tinge through binoculars, but still not the scope. And I still can't see a tail in my 10" dob :mad2:. It's naked eye here in my light polluted suburb of Brisbane. Well, as a dot in the sky anyway :lol:. :stargaze:

[barx1963]

Well done Raymond and very well done with the photo.

Congrats

Malcolm

[REVEREND]

Thanks Suzy and Malcolm. It was the help of you guys ( and others on here) and Glens last post was the reason I found it.

Cheers Reverend

[REVEREND]

It was still visible with the naked eye last night. I took a few more pics. It looks like it won't be around for much longer. Any idea when it will be out of sight? Also is it correct that it won't be visible for another 7K years..:eyepop:
Cheers Reverend.

[garin]

Great to hear you eventually found it, and better yet photographed it :)

[REVEREND]

Thanks Garin. It was still visible last night.
Cheers Reverend.

[Suzy]

That's right Raymond- around 8,000 years :eyepop:.
I wonder what life will be like on this planet on its return :eyepop:.

It should start fading soon and it'll get lower and lower in the sky as it heads north. You will notice now that by 9.30 it's already getting quite low.

[REVEREND]

It was still there last night Suzy.

Cheers Reverend.

[Suzy]

I haven't been able to observe it for the last week because of rain and heavy cloud cover.
I think it might actually be clear tonight but now the Moon is setting later each night grrrrr :tasdevil:.

[REVEREND]

Couldn't see it last night, either because its disappeared or the moon is too close and too bright. It has been a wonderful experience, and thanks again to all members for their advice on locating it. It took me awhile to find it , but when I did , I had to look every night.:)

Cheers Reverend.