Got me a comet!!

[Liz]

Was getting worried about Comet Hartley 2 103P, as weather has been atrocious. Cloudy a LOT. :sadeyes:
Anyway, weatherzone said pretty clear overnight, so up 2400 hrs, and trudged doen the beach with camera and binoculars.
Took awhile for Perseus to rise up over the muck above the sea, then light cloud floating in and out.
Tried in bins but couldnt find it. :(
Took bucketload of pics, and wasnt until I put on the 50mm lens, that I could see the comet in the images, and knew then exactly where to look.
Voila, there it was, a very large and faint ...blob. Like a big round nebula. Yeah, very happy to have got it!! :thumbsup:
Didnt try in the Dob, too hard to get it in a position to view comet, and would waken the neighbours, while trying to drag it down driveway. :rolleyes:
We have incoming cloud again over the next few days, then the Moon will be around.
I will post some more pics later in the Imaging section, but time to catch some zzzzz, and dream happy dreams. ;)

[mozzie]

nice shot liz!!!!you sound stocked to get it......are you going to try in your dobby at a later date????? well done:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[glenc]

It is too cloudy here to see it.
CLOUDY Townsville is the place to be!

[bartman]

Well done Liz....!!!!!
Nice green tinge!
Bartman

[Ro84]

Seen through binoculars, but of course my location allows this. ^^ Great, Liz!

[Outbackmanyep]

Thats awesome Liz! Congrats!!!!
Thanks for sharing the pics!

Unfortunately i may not see this comet in all it's glory as i have been constantly been battered by cloud and rain, the weather reports aren't looking good at all, they said on the news last night that the rain will be staying with us for the next couple of months at least so i may not be able to see anything!

Keep us informed on how it's going!

[erick]

Well nabbed Liz :thumbsup:

[Liz]

Thanks guys. :)
Yes, was happy to get it, as I ended up missing Encke, and didnt want that to happen.I know this comet is getting brighter, but you dont know what conditions are going to be like.
It is pretty low on horizon, so tricky for anyone southerly than Tville, though Ron did get it. :thumbsup:
It is so faint though, hard to believe that it is ? mag 5.5 ish. I definitely couldnt see it naked eye, and was a struggle with the bins too, mainly using averted vision. It is so large and faint.
It has climbed higher so should be able to get it in my yard in the next week or so, yes, definitely have a look in the Dob Mozzie. ;)
Hope the clouds clear a bit down south for you all, though Roberto is fine.:D
Do you need a trip up north Chris?? :)

[astroron]

Well done Liz,:thumbsup: Iam glad you bagged this one a bit early:D
I hope we can get rid of this crap weather and get a peek some time :rolleyes:
Cheers

[Liz]

Cheers Ron. :)
You did get it though??
Its still so faint, but hoping over the next 2-3 weeks, it will brighten a bit more.

[astroron]

Yes I did Liz, bad phrazing on my part, what I meant to say that I want more looks at it in higher altitudes so dont have to sit on my bum to see it:lol:

[Ro84]

Previsions say that this comet will increase its brightness to 4th magnitude within the end of this month. This comet will be in Auriga-Gemini at that time, easy to see from Australia too.

For anyone doesn't have an ephemerides program for comets: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0103P/2010.html

[Paddy]

Well done, Liz!

[mental4astro]

Awesome stuff, Liz! :thumbsup:

I've only seen one comet, and that was Halley's, way back when, :rolleyes:. I just haven't bothered to chase down any others, :shrug:. Another thing to add to "The List"...

[Suzy]

Oh please, you have nice comfy carpet to sit on, already! :rolleyes: :lol:

Woohoo! Way to go Liz! :thumbsup:

[astroron]

Suzy, I don't want to be a Low Down Bum, to see the Comet, even though it is nice carpet:lol::P

[Ro84]

Yes glenc, it is the same link posted by me above. :D

[leon]

Go on ya Liz, well captured indeed.

Leon

[glenc]

This SkyMap Pro map shows Comet Hartley's position at 4am AEDT for the next 4 weeks.
103P will be 0.5 degrees to the left of rho Aur tomorrow at 4am. (That is about 4.3 deg above Capella)

[mental4astro]

Thanks Glen!!!

Very handy and timely for the next new Moon this November. Will make for an interesting comparsion between binoculars and a 17.5" scope for sure.

Would you be able to post this picture of yours in the November Challenge when it gets up? Maybe extend the period for a couple of more weeks into November too. I think it will make for quite a stir.

Mental.

[Liz]

Have tried the last couple of nights but too cloudy, and MOON getting bigger. :sadeyes:
Still a bit of time for us though.
Closest to us 20/10 at .10 AU, and perihelion 8 days later. :)
It will be a good target for the November challenge. :thumbsup:

[Outbackmanyep]

I don't think you'll have any trouble Liz, just make yourself a chart and make sure you include all the Messier objects etc in the vicinity so you don't get them confused.
I think it will be washed out under full moon!

[Liz]

Am soooo glad I already have it Chris, but would like to see the change in brightness. I know the Moon will be a PIA, but will perservere to observe it a bit brighter than what it was. ;)

[glenc]

I was hoping to catch Hartley this morning before the full moon, but it's raining :(
On 6/11 the comet will be 7 degrees from Procyon.
Here is the SkyMap Pro comet path for November at 4am.
Magnitude 7 Hartley will be between M46 and M47 on November 29.

[Liz]

Keep trying Glen, Moonset tomorrow am just before 4am. :thumbsup:

Checked skies a few times, but cloudy, then at 4am it had cleared a bit, so managed a few pics before it clouded over again.
Still really faint, and dont think caught it naked eye, quite a bit of hazy cloud around, but saw it again in binoculars. Has brighted only a little from when I saw it last week.
Hopefully it will brighten a little more as it heads towards the Sun. :shrug:
Didnt see any meteors, despte the Orionids about to peak. :sadeyes:

[glenc]

It is cloudy again here :(, thanks Liz for the image :).

[glenc]

Full moon is just before noon today so I didn't think I would see Hartley this morning, but I did! :) I tried to see it with 20x80 binoculars and just managed to pick it up. Then I used my 12" Dob with a 30mm EP (1.5 deg field) and the core was easy to see. I couldn't pick the edge of the comet however. The comet formed a triangle with two stars magnitude 7.5 and 8.0.
Some comet data: Distance: 0.1216 AU (18.2 million km) Right ascension: 5h 52m 30.7s Declination: +34° 24' 4"

[Liz]

Well done Glen!!!
Clear up here, but have been working, but would also love to pick it up again. :)

[glenc]

The Moon is too close to Hartley now. It will be better on 31/10.
Mag 4.7 Hartley will then be 28 deg SW of the last Q Moon.
On 31/10 the comet will be 2.5 deg east (to the right) of mag 2 gamma Gem at 4am at:
Right ascension: 6h 48m 30.5s, Declination: +15° 35' 41"

[glenc]

I had a look at Comet Hartley this morning with my 12" Dob.
The 60% phase Moon makes magnitude estimates difficult.
The comet's nucleus is similar in surface brightness to the magnitude 10.7 stars near it.
The out of focus comet is a bit brighter than the nearby out of focus mag 8.4 star. (SAO 96032)

[Rob_K]

Good work Glen! Yes, the moonlight would make magnitude estimates difficult. Big surprise, our skies actually cleared up for a while late last night - unfortunately all except for the vital strip low down in the NE!!:mad2:

Visual was out of the question but I did hastily set up the camera gear on spec and was very surprised to see that the comet showed through cloud bands in the three short poor subs I was able to get. So I suspect it has pretty much retained its brightness, although with pouring rain now, a flood warning and poor forecast for the next week, they might be the only comet photons that trickle through in our neck of the woods for quite a while! :lol:

Here's a link. 103P is the greenish object bottom-left of the bright star (Alhena, or Gamma Geminorum).

http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww271/Rob_Kau/103Pfullsm.jpg

Cheers -

[Osirisra]

Just had look at the litlle blighter, nice and easy to spot before moon popped up.

[Liz]

Well done Ken!!
I also managed to check it out again before the Moon rose - Was brighter tham when I saw it a couple of weeks ago.
Tried the comet filter on it, and helped...... with averted vision I thought I could see (imagine) a fannish tail. ;)
Had been out of town with our club, got home 1.30am, but Moon up then - took a few images (had left camera battery at home :sadeyes:) but comet barely showed as Moon up.

[CometGuy]

Saw the comet last night as the moon was starting to rise. Boy it was difficult to see in 15x70 Binocs for a 5th magnitude comet...definitely need a dark sky for this one. Anyway managed to get a 10 x 60 second image of the comet with the C8 Hyperstar + QHY9 camera and I've attached a 1.6 x 1.6 degree Field of view crop.

[mozzie]

hi all i was at minnie waters camping for the weekend and both mornings i tried and bugger me there was light cloud around didnt see, but orion was still good and taurus plieades in my new binos was wow....

[glenc]

I found Hartley with an 8x50 finder-scope this morning. It was between the stars 35 Gem and 38 Gem. The comet was fainter than the mag 5.7 star 35 Gem, using out of focus 12x60 binoculars. I thought I saw a tail using a 30mm EP (50X) and a 12" Dob, but the 37% phase Moon made it hard to tell. The tail was not visible in 20x80 binos.

[Liz]

Well done Glen and Terry. Yes, I maybe thought I saw a tail 2 nights ago, but not 100%.
Ooh, bad luck Mozzie. :sadeyes: New bins sound good though. :thumbsup:
I tried this am again, but cloudy.

[mozzie]

hi liz im trying again tomorrow but its not looking good cloudy-cloudy-cloudy

[mozzie]

clouded out again!!!

the weather is crystal clear here tonight and once again try tomorrow!!!!!

damn shouldnt have planed it will rain again :shrug::mad2:

[glenc]

There was no Moon when I looked at Comet Hartley this morning and it was clear in that part of the sky.
In 12x60 binoculars it was a bit fainter than M35 (mag 5.1) and similar to M46 (mag 6.1) and also similar to the OC NGC2477 (mag 5.0).
M35 was a naked eye object, the comet was not. I think the comet is about magnitude 5.5.
In a 12" Dob it looked a bit fan shaped, but it was hard to tell.
Here are some images. http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0103P/2010-pictures.html

[mozzie]

finally a clear night found comet as a bright glow no tail with my 9x63 binos quiet a nice sight :thumbsup:.star below hip 34033 mag 5.1 was visable but could not make out comet myself naked eye.....
still stocked to finally see after terrible weather

[CraigS]

This may not be a direct observation, but this really cool video (http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-epoxi-comet-mission-multiple-jets.html) from the NASA EPOXI mission spacecraft turned up in the News this morning …

The hi and medium res footage from 8 million kilometres caught two jets firing off the comet surface for a 16 hour period.

I'm excited about all this ... great captures, Liz !

Cheers

[Liz]

Cloudy up here last night. :sadeyes:

Mozzie - well done!! A great feeling to find a comet after trying for a while, through dodgy weather. :)

Glen - wow, great report. :thumbsup: Mag 5.5 sounds good .... I thought it was a bit fanshaped too.

Craig - lots of action there, that is amazing, thankyou. :eyepop:

[Liz]

For those who still havent found Comet Hartley, this is a Stellarium image for 1am tomorrow .
This is the data to put into Stellarium (find stellarium in your program files, open data, then ssystem, and paste at the end of the file).
Good luck. :)

[Hartley]
name = 103P/Hartley
parent = Sun
radius = 24
oblateness = 0.0
halo = true
color = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo = star16x16.png
tex_map = nomap.png
coord_func = comet_orbit
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2455497.76736
orbit_PericenterDistance = 1.05686
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.695121
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 181.2027
orbit_AscendingNode = 219.7602
orbit_Inclination = 13.6184
lighting = false
albedo = 0.5
sidereal_period = 365.25

[mozzie]

wow!!!!! 2 clear nights whats going on

had another look this morning still a glowing blob with no visable tail with 9x63 binos but did notice its track of movement...geez i love looking at comets.and didnt see it naked eye (or did i) its amazing what you think you see...:lol:

oh and there predicting upto another 40mm rain again :shrug:

[Jeeps]

Cheers thanks for that but it won't let me save that at the end :(


cheers

[CraigS]

Liz & Guys;

Here ya go …

NASA Deep Impact spacecraft visits another comet (Update) (http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-nasa-deep-impact-spacecraft-comet.html)

It looks like a giant peanut (http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/ENCOUNTER/IINMVUAXF_6000002_001_001.jpg) !! …

or a dumbbell (http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/ENCOUNTER/IINMVUAXF_6000001_001_001.jpg) !!

The two ends look as though they're made from a different material than the centre band ..?.. I also would have thought that the jets would be coming from the end facing the Sun, but they do say it's "hyperative and feisty" so I guess its rotating fairly fast. I read somewhere the gas is mostly cyanide (??).

I hope you guys get good visibility for your observations.
Well spotted if you get it .. its so far away !!

Cheers and Regards

[Liz]

Craig ... had just been looking at the images as you posted - how amazing is that - such close ups of the beautiful rocky little comet!!!!!!

[CraigS]

Liz;
Yep .. awesome photos alright .. it might be a giant 'spud' that got away from some alien's veggie patch !
:lol:
Somewhat more seriously though, is that smooth bit connecting the two halves. I thought it might have been some missing data in the image but it appears in every one of them !

Very strange looking object. I'll leave it up to the comet guys to figure that bit out.

I hope Outbackmanyep is enjoying all this ! (He's been very patient whilst waiting in anticipation for it all to unfold .. bet he's excited, also).

Cheers

[mithrandir]

This should be an FAQ.

Where are you trying to save it, and as what user, and on what operating system?

There can be two copies of ssystem.ini

One is in the program's install directory and you may not have write permission to that unless you are logged in as the administrator or "RunAs Administrator". Updating that copy is bad style in any case.

Unixish systems it will be whatever_install_dir/share/stellarium/data/ssystem.ini

Windoze it will be %programfiles%\Stellarium\data\ssys tem.ini (or whatever the x86 version of that is called on 64 bit systems)

The other may not exist but if it does is in your local settings.

Unixish systems it will be ~/.stellarium/ssystem.ini (or maybe ~/.stellarium/data/ssystem.ini since it will not run on my copy of Linux due to bad OpenGL drivers)

Windoze it will be %appdata%\Stellarium\data\ssystem.i ni

If the local file does not exist, copy the one from the program's install directory to the local settings (you might need to create the "data" directory). You can then edit to your hearts content.

This discussion applies equally to config.ini except that will have been created in your local settings as soon as you did a "Save Configuration".

[Jeeps]

Thanks for that. Done and done. It works!

cheers

[glenc]

See http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=67810

[Analog6]

Liz, I have just loaded Stellarium - where do I put this? Note I have a Mac running OSX 10.5.8.

And can anyone tell me is there any way to slightly shrink the window - it seems to default to the whole screen?

[Liz]

Hi Odille - so, its now on your computor, in your program files?
On the bottom line of Stellarium image are a few icons, on of which is a ....... box thing with arrows at all corners, click that, and it reduces the size. You need to move your curser over the line (under the date) to bring it up. :)

[mithrandir]

I can't answer the first question. Omaroo is the Mac guru. There are two locations for ssystem.ini - the one that gets installed with the program, and the one in your personal settings. You should only change the personal ones because the others are replaced every time you upgrade the program. I explained this all just the other day, but didn't include any Macisms. If you can find you personal "config.ini", and where the default "ssystem.ini" is located, the howto is a few posts earlier in this thread and should be Macifiable.

Like Liz says, if you move the mouse to the bottom edge of the screen, a horizontal menu will pop up. There is an icon that looks like a box with arrows pointing out from the four corners. If you are in "full screen mode" it will be highlighted. If you click it, it loses the highlight and switches to "windowed mode".

If you then do a config save Stellarium will start in "windowed mode" next time.

Andrew

[Liz]

Checked out comet Hartley last night as it rose under Orion about midnight.
Still pretty easy to find between Canis Minor and Monoceros, but it has certainly faded a bit. Back to a faint, round and nebuolous blob.

[Analog6]

Thank you both, I'll go investigate/play

[Outbackmanyep]

Damn straight! :thumbsup:

I got a scaled image and its been fun trying to work out approximately how big some of the features are on the surface, i wonder what else we can extrapolate from their images!? :)

[glenc]

Comet Hartley 2 is about magnitude 7 now.
I compared it with the magnitude 6.9 star HD 57275 using out of focus 12 by 60 binoculars.
In a 12" Dob their seems to be a tail about 0.5 deg long. (maybe)
The comet is 2.3 degrees east of delta Mon.

[glenc]

Comet Hartley is faint in 20x80 binoculars now. It is about 3.5 degrees south of M47.

[glenc]

I like these pictures of Hartley's Comet.
http://www.astronomynotes.net/2010/10/28/gallery-comet-hartley-2/

[Liz]

Thanks for that Glen. :)
Havent seen Hartley for ages, but know that its still visible in the scope. Alas, weather not allowing much.