Man, this one is very addictive (arent they all?), such a sustained rapid brightening :-) I wont get much sleep for ages now! this morning backyard in the burbs, hand held 20x80's, .5 degree tail easy - hints of longer tail at times, mag maybe 6.1, ~ 4' in size, very bright condensed object in big bino's.
Nice pic Kevin :-)
this one has a funny feel about it - about blinkin time too - (disclaimer: I could be wrong?)
WARNING: comets can become seriously addictive! they should have a health warning :-)))
Kevin the charts dont also take into account that this time of year, down here - the nights get longer fast also - already I can see the sun coming in windows onto nothern window interior ledges - a sure sign of the sun moving north again. A sign I now dread usually ;( but not this time
Hehheh, I get a funny feeling about most comets. This one is still 1au from Earth and nearly at perhilion. Should get a bit brighter yet.
Kevin, gotta love the fact that the nights get longer at the morning end first
I havent seen one brighten that steadily in as short a time for while almost daily around .1 of a mag recently, almost no wavering?
although some reliable predictions say it may only get to 5th mag at best. but to a comet fan - thats very nice indeed eh - especially if it has a intrinsicaly bright tail (not included in mag estimates/obs)
I havent seen one brighten that steadily in as short a time for while almost daily around .1 of a mag recently, almost no wavering?
although some reliable predictions say it may only get to 5th mag at best. but to a comet fan - thats very nice indeed eh - especially if it has a intrinsicaly bright tail (not included in mag estimates/obs)
Kearn,
If you model the comet's predicted brightness from now on, it should really only get to about 5th magnitude. A nice way to start the year, and a good warm-up for Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, which is developing quite nicely (both components!).
Thanks Greg, hope your getting some good views of A1!
I am very much looking forward to 73P too, I have never seen a bright multi-component comet before - should be very interesting for me.
Good point Kevin
I was just looking at the chart from the southern comets homepage & superimposing my Horizon on it for that day.
For some reason the Ephemeris for this comet does not come up in my starry night ?
Even though I have done the updates !
I dont know what OS - mac or pc - your using Ian, (i'm on a mac) but I had trouble at first too, even tho I cut and pasted the orbital elements into the usual comet.txt file for SNP as script from SN section of website http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephem.../Soft07Cmt.txt , like I have done many times before (I dont use the update as I only want the less common brighter comets usually - I get everything else I needed from patches).
But found it didnt work like it used to - what I found when I looked is that they have changed the mpec designation at the end of the line of script from 'MPC 54987' type layout to this new 'MPEC 2006-C68' designation I suspect that was my trouble, because when I went and entered it in manually in the menu>file>'new comet orbiting sun' splash window and it worked fine. I guess changing the end of the line back to the old format may of worked too?. Its just my guess. i havent been reading the yahoo SN site much for a while, so cant say, seemed to work for David P tho?.
Do you normally get comets updating and working ok Ian before this?
Last edited by fringe_dweller; 13-02-2006 at 03:42 AM.
Hi Dave,
I have seen recent estimates that A1's head is around 5.3 in magnitude, and you can see some tail despite moonlight with large binoc's.
John Drummond of New Zealand has a recent pic and obs on his website http://tinyurl.com/jvwth
I finally figured out how to do a simple chart of comet's path in my SN - I forgot to add galaxies and globs tho I have the tail non existant just to be safe hehe well actually its coz the mag settings in my edited orbital elements are much lower than should be
the first number is the date (which ends at left on the 10th march - be very low by then!) second number is local daylight savings time of 5 am - all for around latitude 35 south
HTH!
Be quick Dave. It will be too low in a week or two. Second week of March and it's gone.
Thanks Kevin
Unfortunately, I have a very poor South Eastern aspect with trees and houses blocking my horizon. It seems I'll need to saddle up early and travel to a better viewing site to catch a glimpse of this comet.
73P/Schwassmann_Wachmann 3 in May this year is looking better all the time.
superb, just superb Lester, around 3 degrees or more of faint tail there going out of frame - wow, tails faded fast from last friday!
so we might have a new south aussie on the comet scene who actually lives in the country
I got to see it yeserday morning (monday) from dark site - saw it naked eye for first time, (once it was high enough), as a very easy too see pinpoint of light at about the 5th mag.
nice sight in the binoc's too
This one is still 1au from Earth and nearly at perhilion. Should get a bit brighter yet.
almost daily around .1 of a mag recently, almost no wavering?
I have the tail non existant just to be safe hehe well actually its coz the mag settings in my edited orbital elements are much lower than should be 
to get up before 6:30am. 
and travel to a better viewing site to catch a glimpse of this comet.
superb, just superb Lester, around 3 degrees or more of faint tail there going out of frame - wow, tails faded fast from last friday!
