Rob McNaughts 39th!

[Outbackmanyep]

Nothing like leaving it till the last minute!
R.H. McNaught discovers #39 on the 31st December!!

http://www.comethunter.de/

Well done again Rob!

Cheers!

[RB (Andrew)]

Wow, congrats Rob.
Wonder if this one will put on a big show.

[Ingo]

Congrats! Wish I knew how to discover comets.

[Outbackmanyep]

Originally Posted by RB

Wow, congrats Rob.
Wonder if this one will put on a big show.

I don't think it will put on a show as it's perihelion distance is 4.1 AU, it would be quite faint at that distance, but then again only a preliminary orbit has been done, so unless a refined calculation is made we won't really know!

Cheers RB!

[Ric]

Congrats to Mr McNaught, the man is certainly prolific in his comet discoveries and to think that this isn't his main objective, more like a bonus from his research.

Cheers

[rat156]

I tried to find this last night, with a CCD camera.

No luck at all, perhaps a very faint smudge in the appropriate area.

I could see clearly two mag 17 galaxies nearby with the exposures I was taking, but no comet :-(

It was too windy to take really long exposures, I was limited to 2 minute maximum, even then had to chuck out a majority of them.

Equipment used Meade 10" RCX (F8), SBig ST-10XME binned 3x3.

How good are the orbital calculations for this one?

Cheers
Stuart

[Outbackmanyep]

Originally Posted by rat156

I tried to find this last night, with a CCD camera.

No luck at all, perhaps a very faint smudge in the appropriate area.

I could see clearly two mag 17 galaxies nearby with the exposures I was taking, but no comet :-(

It was too windy to take really long exposures, I was limited to 2 minute maximum, even then had to chuck out a majority of them.

Equipment used Meade 10" RCX (F8), SBig ST-10XME binned 3x3.

How good are the orbital calculations for this one?

Cheers
Stuart

Hey Stuart, try

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephem...ets/index.html

That should give you orbital elements, or try emailing Rob McNaught @ Siding Spring Survey page

http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~rmn/index.htm

Cheers!
I doubt i'll be attempting to see this thing!

[rat156]

Hi All,

Found this one last night!

It took five minute exposures with the SBig and the scope f ratio reduced to 6.

Even then it's a very faint smudge, only detectable by movement.

I'll attempt to make a video today.

Cheers
Stuart

[rat156]

With the warm, somewhat windy weather here over the past couple of nights, I've been trying to get a pic of this comet.

It's at mag 18.3 ATM, so it's a bit faint.

I managed to get some pics last night, five minute exposures with the ST-10XME with the RCX at f6. Even so it's very bloody faint. Here's one of the pics which shows it most clearly, the second is an animated gif showing the movement over about an hour. Check out how good your eyes are!

Cheers
Stuart

[Outbackmanyep]

Awesome stuff Stuart! Definitely not a visual comet! Would be bloody hard to find!
Glad you got it!

Cheers!