Hi Luis,
Quote:
Originally Posted by luigi
Thank you and sorry to ask but can you tell me what's the expected brightness based on the last data and how it will be seen from the South Hemisphere? Ty!
 |
Very hard to say with any certainty Luis remembering this comet is currently outside the orbit of Jupiter and we can't really say whether it will be a good performer or not in intrinsic brightness. Indeed the elements are still jumping around a lot because of the relatively small number of astrometric observations and shortness of the observed track. That''ll change in a month or so as the observed track gets longer.
Subject to correction here, but I don't think we even know whether this is a "first-timer" (notorious underperformers) or a "return-visitor". Given the elements above, There is a high likelyhood it will be a naked-eye object around perihelion, fairly probable that it will be reasonably bright but hard to say exactly how bright.
I'd be surprised if it didn't make 5th magnitude, fair chance of 1st or 2nd magnitude, maybe even a bit brighter if it is a particularly good performer. We'll know a lot more in several months time.
Best,
Les D