EPOXI / Deep Imact flyby of Comet Hartley 2

namloc1980

Just a quick heads up. The EPOXI spacecraft (formerly known as Deep Impact which visited comet Tempel 1 in 2005) is due to have a close flyby of less than 700km of comet Hartley 2 on the 4th of November. It should capture high-res images of the nucleus of the comet during it's flyby.

Comet Hartley 2 is tiny at just c.1km in diameter. Here's an image from the 23rd October from EPOXI of the comet as it closes in on it at a distance of 13 million km.



EPOXI Mission website

backboiler

Has anyone had any luck seeing this from a light polluted viewing spot or is it just too diffuse?

whynotdo

Some links here to watch live coverage of tomorrows flyby of Comet Hartly2(for this week only EDT is four hours behind winter time)
Hopeully some exciting pictures,fingers crossed!

Thursday, Nov. 4:
Live coverage beginning at 6:30 a.m. PDT (9:30 a.m. EDT) from mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be available online on NASA Television's Media Channel. Coverage includes closest approach, an educational segment, and the return of close-approach images. A post-flyby news briefing is planned for 1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT). For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
Activities will also be carried live on one of JPL's Ustream channels at: http://www.ustream.tv/user/NASAJPL2 .
The public can watch a real-time animation of the EPOXI comet flyby using NASA's new "Eyes on the Solar System" Web tool. JPL created this 3-D environment that allows people to explore the solar system directly from their computers. Visit http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes .
EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The term EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the Hartley 2 flyby, called the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI). For more information about EPOXI, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi and http://epoxi.umd.edu/.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the EPOXI mission for NASA.

namloc1980

Close approach image. Not yet processed etc.:

Beeker

namloc1980 wrote: »

Close approach image. Not yet processed etc.:

What a great shot!