Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) 26-12-2014 Comet rotation??

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

First of all Arrrrrgghhh!!!:confused2:

What a pain in the A.. this has been put together. Trying to do the animation and for some reason all the images would get out of sequence, got that sorted.
The comet is moving fast and the tail is changing rapidly so I could only use 10 minutes worth before the tail would blur out.

Now with my rant out of the way, Wow!!!!:eyepop:
This comet is amazing, I've suppled a 27 minute animation which looks like it shows rotation.
Have a look at the bottom three streamers, they seem to twist or rotate over each other.
Of course this just may be perspective, but in any case it's really moving.


http://vid1172.photobucket.com/albums/r571/jtilbrook/Lovejoy2612_zpshib9vfvp.mp4

Cheers,

Justin.

[algwat]

Ooooh, you have a good one there. well done.
Yes, the streams should rotate as the comet nucleus rotates the active area. assuming its not 100% active. So, on a longer sequence you seem to have the rotation going from the lower half to higher half.

This is very similar to what ISON did over a day in STEREO images, see this small avi at my blog ,

http://cometal-comets.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/comet-ison.html

at this updaate - ISON Enters HI1A 20131120

kind regards, Alan

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Alan!:thumbsup:

Thanks for that link to Ison.

With any luck I'll get out tomorrow morning, really want to get a longer time frame of images.

Cheers,

Justin.

[cometcatcher]

Most interesting Justin! From my perspective of your animation the comet tail seems to corkscrew, quite possibly due to comet rotation. I can just imaging this thing corkscrewing through the sky!

Yes I've found any more than 10 minutes will blur the tail details it's changing so fast, unlike those dusty comets where we can give them hours of exposure and nothing changes. Not so with ion tails!

[astronobob]

Fan tail tastic :einstein: Quality work Justin :cool2:

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Kevin!:thumbsup:

Cork screw is a good description, first time I've seen this.



Thanks Bob!:thumbsup:

Cheers,

Justin.

[RickS]

That's fascinating, Justin. Worth all the effort :)

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Rick!:thumbsup:

Cheers,

Justin.

[algwat]

Think of the comet as a boat propeller, the water churn up close is the coma, a few meters back and the streamers are in the vortex created. Then as the boat moves along the wake is like the dust fan tail that are seem on the big dust comets like panstarrs as seen in Stereo images. A slalom water skier on a turn is also another good dust tail analogue.

Kind regards, Alan
...waiting for the sky to darken, looks clear here tonight..

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks for that explanation Alan!:thumbsup:


Cheers,

Justin.

[CometGuy]

Great work Justin. Will we see you out hunting for comets sometime soon?

Terry

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Terry!:thumbsup:

Not sure how I'd go about it with my setup.

Not as easy as visual comet hunting, I feel lucky to have two comets to my name.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Phil Hart]

Nice pickup. Just looking at my images from last night I thought they looked like the spiraling vortices behind a wing tip. Great that you can see it in animation.

Phil

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Phil!:thumbsup:

just a fantastic comet, that tail is so active!

Cheers,

Justin.