Thread: C/2011 l4
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Old 19-01-2014, 01:47 PM
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cometcatcher (Kevin)
<--- Comet Hale-Bopp

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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Cloudy Mackay
Posts: 6,542
Comets, my favourite subject.

As well as the above mentioned, you need a good resource to keep you up to date with what comets are up there. I like this Skyhound's comet chasing page http://cometchasing.skyhound.com/ and for a quick check I use the BAA comet section http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/ There's also a Facebook comet watch page if you're into Facebook. It's usually a good idea to check the above pages every week or 2 to see what's happening, if they have an outburst etc.

One other thing I find very handy is to load comet orbital elements into Stellarium. This has to be done on a regular basis also as it doesn't do it automatically. The great thing about this is that you can use the advance time feature to track the path of the comet as it moves through the sky from night to night.

A tip, for newbies (and me) comet magnitudes on paper "seem" brighter than they actually are. Unless you're very keen, double figure magnitude comets are mostly very dim. Comet magnitudes are taken from the total "fuzzball" so even a large magnitude 7 comet can look quite faint still. But once you catch one, they can be addictive!
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