Comet McNaught (2006/P1) - discussions - Page 29

matt · #**561** 29-01-2007, 05:47 PM

Jodee

It's already gone past the Earth and won't be back for about another 100,000 years or so.

Even then, it may not get as close as it has this time.

I think we're safe for now, at least from this one

loomberah (Gordon) · #**562** 29-01-2007, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garyh

Hi all,
Is it worth getting up to see the comet before sunrise for my latitude? Mid north coast N.S.W. or am I too far north?
How high above the horizon and what time would be best to see it rising?
Cheers Gary

See my post from this morning here and in the images section, I'm further North than you. The best time for you to see it is a bit before 5am, when its most visible, balancing increasing altitude above the horizon against increasing twilight.

cheers, Gordon

Garyh · #**563** 30-01-2007, 10:09 AM

Thanks Gordon, for the info hope tonight offers nice clear skies!! last night a bit of a dud but least I saw it..yep about 5am you could notice the twilight so I`ll try to get ready by 4:30 am and image before 5am..
cheers Gary

matt · #**564** 30-01-2007, 10:14 AM

It was still quite easy naked eye last night from Canberra

It has moved quite a bit to the south, and dimmed.

The moon's not helping much either. Wonder whether it will still be visible come the next new moon?

swannies1983 (Dan) · #**565** 30-01-2007, 10:12 PM

Guess who's back Down Under!!

That's right, me. After my flight from Prague was cancelled on the 24th of Jan due to snow, not being able to get a flight to Australia until the 28th of Jan, having a stopever in Tokyo for a day, missing the connecting flight to Adelaide from Sydney due to a large number of passengers at the Sydney airport, I finally made it back to Adelaide today.

I just had a look at the comet for the first time. While nowhere near its glorious performances which graced the southern skies a few weeks back, it is still a splendind sight (for me). Easily visible to the naked eye, despite the moon. I guess I will just have to drool over the pics on here to get some idea of what it really looked like

glenc (Glen) · #**566** 31-01-2007, 05:14 AM

I have just been looking at the comet. It is fainter than 47Tuc, I would say it is about magnitude 4.5, maybe fainter. It was only just visible with the naked eye but haze and twilight were problems. The tail was at least 7 degrees long with 7x50 binoculars at 5am DST (UT+11) on 31/1/07.

DaveGee (Dave Gault) · #**567** 31-01-2007, 07:43 AM

At last I can say I observed the comet (naked eye) twice in 12 hours.
Last night at 8:45pm and this morning at 4:55am. Very happy

RegardsDave

erick (Eric) · #**568** 31-01-2007, 09:51 AM

Yes, Dave, great fun to see it twice at different ends of the day as I just managed to do on Australia Day! And a challenge as well, not on our willpower, but given the clouds and smoke that we've had across much of Australia off and on the last two weeks. Who could guarantee that a clear morning would be followed by a clear evening??

vespine · #**569** 31-01-2007, 10:11 AM

I haven't managed to jump on since last week but I FINALLY got my scope out of my apartment and took it down to a car park against the beach just north of Brighton last Thursday. I invited a few friends and took a bottle of wine and it was really great! Had heaps of people come up and ask what I was doing and a few people were really interested in having a look, gathered quite a little crowd at one stage. Admittedly, as a few people have noted already, the 12" Lightbridge was a little disappointing on the comet, only from the 'bang for the buck' perspective, the comet was so big and bright it wasn't really a telescope object! The view through the bins was spectacular. But I did manage to find Orion nebula and omega centauri which blew everyone away, and yes, even the plain old moon

got massive "oooh"s! And to cap off the night, I even got Saturn, even thought the viewing was pretty average, it was still pretty impressive. So overall, it was probably one of the most pleasant night's viewing I've had.

mickoking · #**570** 31-01-2007, 06:40 PM

I haven't seen the comet since I imaged it last week. But last night I had a peek and was pleasantly surprised to notice that it is still easily visible, tail and all. Go McNaught, Go

After the full moon I'll do some more imaging with my humble compact.

IceAgeComing · #**571** 31-01-2007, 08:53 PM

finally, a perfect night. I must have some sort of bad karma because the only time i was able to see it properly was during a full moon and when it was only magnitude 4. Nevermind though, it was still a great sight to see through binoculars..

on another note, a predicted -8 iridium flare failed to deliver tonight

fringe_dweller · #**572** 31-01-2007, 09:21 PM

warning rant imminent!

Erick, thats a great point, as a mostly part time night skywatcher for the past 13 years or so, i have personally never seen so much unpredictabilty/changability in weather forecasts as I have seen in the last 2 or 3 years, I am talking only about my own small range/patch only of course.
I havent seen what the weather people used to call a 'dominant high' pressure system (they used to be massive, and that phrase was common here) for what seems an eternity, they pathetic wusses now - it's ooo ooo please dont hurt me mr big nasty northern low pressure sytem/trough/southern cold front ooo oooo i'll just fade away now *poof* and their gone, and they shrink down to wishy washy little weeners - wth!
A friend who has shared this frustration with the weather predictabitly, me and him are starting to think that something funny is definately going on with the climate/weather! admitadly cycles can work on long time scales, this i realise, but i remember as a kid the weather being quite different to recent years. so which is normal and which isnt

this conversation has been had here before of course, but i just see more and more evidence of strange weather every passing year -
it sometimes seems we changed climates with brisbane, they got our dry clear weather, and we get more northern monsoonal stuff - never seen so much humid weather as in recent years in adelaide either
then theres the retrograde moving seasons! (ie we dont get an autumn much anymore - its just like er summer/winter - thats ya seasons folks) - but we wont go there! lol or increasing bushfire frequency - i mean, not to make light of a very serious matter, but come on, this is getting ridiculous now! you could just about call victorias huge bushfires just about an an 'annual' event now

set ya clock/calendar by them? oh its summer again, victorias on fire! cant you tell - is it any thing to do with sea and tree changers being a massive movement

I am also looking at my magic crystal ball, and predict a large increase in percieved magnitude of comet after moon is out of the way

fringe_dweller · #**573** 31-01-2007, 09:49 PM

and before anyone says where have you been - its called a drought, i would say, droughts dont light fires

GeoffW1 (Geoff) · #**574** 31-01-2007, 09:50 PM

Hi,

So the next comparable comet we see will be 8P/Tuttle, from mid Dec 07, appearing at about the same magnitude as P1/McNaught is now? Is that correct?

Cheers

GeoffW1

fringe_dweller · #**575** 31-01-2007, 10:15 PM

Hi Geoff, I dont think we'll be having anything comparable for some time mate, unfortunately! you never know tho, there has been years in history were there have been two or 3! great comets in one year. you only have to look back at Hyakutake in 1996 (best for northerners for longer - circumpolar it was!! like a big clock hand!- we did get the tail pointing south west or west, so it was over our heads for a few days

) and then they got hale-bopp the following year! which hung around for months at a very decent object status, but there has been in history (maybe for only one hemisphere from memory, dont quote me on this tho - and i aint googling to get it right dammit ehehe) a 40 year period without a great comet! so who knows?

best future planner is this page, to my mind, from Seiichi Yoshida

http://www.aerith.net/comet/future-n.html

Tamtarn · #**576** 01-02-2007, 07:49 AM

Thanks for the Comet future planner link Kearn........Great site

fringe_dweller · #**577** 01-02-2007, 04:44 PM

No worries Tamtarn

Seiiche's site is a ripper, its essential viewing for me

re absence of 'great comets' from a particular hemisphere, at least, i think? it may actaully be around 20 years, not 40 as i said earlier, well from west to hyakutake was 20 years for us! so there ya go!

Blue Skies (Jacquie) · #**578** 01-02-2007, 10:34 PM

Dragged myself out of bed and crept around on the road trying to spot the comet through the trees this morning at 5am, just caught it in a hole! Conditions weren't good with low cloud around and lots of moisture, so couldn't see it naked eye although it showed up in binoculars. It looked a pale shadow of it's former glory last week. Anyway, looking forward to getting the moon out of the evening sky this coming week and we'll see what we see!

fringe_dweller · #**579** 02-02-2007, 02:26 AM

so did everyone see the incredibly elegant and skillfull onestop shop, in a nut shell explanation that was linked from the APOD, with the northern and southern halves of the tail, from the actual people responsible for the joined images?

essential reading and very enlightening for the curious

http://www.ts.astro.it/McNaught.html

go the subcomets!!!

Grinz · #**580** 02-02-2007, 03:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

so did everyone see the incredibly elegant and skillfull onestop shop, in a nut shell explanation that was linked from the APOD, with the northern and southern halves of the tail, from the actual people responsible for the joined images?

essential reading and very enlightening for the curious

http://www.ts.astro.it/McNaught.html

go the subcomets!!!

Yes it is amazing - they did a grand job. I will find it most useful for the talk I talked myself into giving next week for our club