ISON Comet ?

zenno

hello there.

Can someone explain to me why the comet ISON is shaped like this in video below or is it just an anomaly ? When you darken down the image even slightly you see 3 objects instead of the one that you would see as a comet.

I'm just curious as to why it is shaped like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AUljj2XTSI

ISON full picture link... http://hla.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/display?image=hlsp_ison_hst_wfc3_130430_f606w_v1&autoscale=&title=Ison+130430+WFC3+F606W



Comet ISON Inversion...

ive seen this topic on a few sites today. I too am curious as to the shape.:)

zenno

Jake1 wrote: »

ive seen this topic on a few sites today. I too am curious as to the shape.:)

Yes indeed, It just seems very odd. I've seen many comets before but nothing like this. Also astronomers are saying that comet ISON isn't brightening up as it should be.

but unless the comet broke up close to the sun and we are just seeing two other parts of the comet that broke off, but it still looks very odd, i don't know, will have to wait and see what the NASA say's about this.

heres part two of that video if you havent seen it. Im having trouble with youtube , so havent seen it yet myself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mzO-204reM

emo72

quite interesting. makes no sense.

zenno

I looked more at this picture and i was thinking if those other two light sources top and bottom could be reflections, but if you look at the coma dust outer-shell you can see it is oblong and more diffused in the middle right of your view.

I find that the two long light sources top and bottom are angled in a way that affects the diffusion of the coma on your right middle view and this is very odd.

Calibos

Sure that youtube video is by the Niburu,Elenin conspiracy ufo end of the world type nuts.

He talks about the coronal mass ejection on a nearby star in one of the photos and bases some exposure/contrast tweaks for the comet part of the image on it. The 'Coronal Mass ejections' are the fecking diffraction spikes of the secondary mirror vanes of the telescope used to take the picture. They haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Its either an optical artifact caused by the telescope like the 'Coronal Mass ejections' or Comet ISON has broken up into 3 pieces which funnily enough was a reason given earlier in the year that might mean ISON might not become the super showcase comet it looked like it had the potential to be. ie. We wouldn't know if we were in for a Hale Bopp surppasing comet until it got closer to the sun and saw whether the suns massive gravity broke it up or not.

WilhelmFink

When should this guy be visible to the naked eye?

zenno

Calibos wrote: »

Sure that youtube video is by the Niburu,Elenin conspiracy ufo end of the world type nuts.

He talks about the coronal mass ejection on a nearby star in one of the photos and bases some exposure/contrast tweaks for the comet part of the image on it. The 'Coronal Mass ejections' are the fecking diffraction spikes of the secondary mirror vanes of the telescope used to take the picture. They haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Its either an optical artifact caused by the telescope like the 'Coronal Mass ejections' or Comet ISON has broken up into 3 pieces which funnily enough was a reason given earlier in the year that might mean ISON might not become the super showcase comet it looked like it had the potential to be. ie. We wouldn't know if we were in for a Hale Bopp surppasing comet until it got closer to the sun and saw whether the suns massive gravity broke it up or not.

Don't mind who made the video, it is more in the way of the strange anomaly that is there, that was just an example, and i think the guy done a good job of trying to explain the oddity and it has nothing to do with conspiracy nuts or the other, it is more out of curiosity than anything else especially when you have seen many a comet & photos that show nothing like this previously.

I find it interesting and would like to know why this comet ISON is like this, but i'll have to wait in line until the NASA makes a comment in the near future.
Interesting though in my opinion.

Popoutman

Those marks look like those used to identify the object, is is often done for images for release to the public for identification purposes.

The elongated marks are usually added manually to the image and would not be present on the original image. In this image the elongated marks are not part of the comet - the comet is the middle of the three, and the elongated marks simply show the viewer where the object is in the field.

edit: To be honest after looking through that video, the guy doing the "analysis" is not doing a good job at all, and doesn't seem to realise that he is already working with heavily processed images - that are being made to look good to our eyes and are not the original image. It annoys me that people try to make assumptions about an object that can't be upheld due to noisy images that simply do not have enough data present in the image to base those assumptions on. c.f. The Face on Mars.

Nothing useful to see here.

jfSDAS

Completely agree with Popoutman on the above post. Those are just marks to show the position of the comet nucleus. The comet nucleus itself is faint so over-processing the image will also brighten the tick-marks!

The second video shows multiple star images because the telescope was tracking the motion of the comet.

Whatever happens, let's hope ISON puts on a decent show at the end of 2013!

I remember the Weekly World News going to town with the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments on Jupiter back in July 1994. They claimed S-O-S calls were being sent by residents of the planet! The article then went on to say that originally the distress signals were being broadcast by two different sites but one went off-air -- according to an "astronomer" it was because one transmitter was hit by a piece of the comet!

Sigh, I miss the Weekly World News Their "I trained my octopus to throw darts" story on one occasion was pure class ... and almost believable!

John

ZeRoY

jfSDAS wrote: »

Whatever happens, let's hope ISON puts on a decent show at the end of 2013!

This. :cool:

zenno

The elongated marks are usually added manually to the image and would not be present on the original image. In this image the elongated marks are not part of the comet - the comet is the middle of the three, and the elongated marks simply show the viewer where the object is in the field.

Good stuff, that's all i'm interested in, idea's on what those two other objects are. that's a good answer.

They are saying that this comets flyby of earth might be seen in morning daylight, that would surely be an amazing sight.

Just one more question... why is the coma oblong shaped ?

amen

why is the coma oblong shaped

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama

zenno

Popoutman wrote: »

Those marks look like those used to identify the object, is is often done for images for release to the public for identification purposes.

The elongated marks are usually added manually to the image and would not be present on the original image. In this image the elongated marks are not part of the comet - the comet is the middle of the three, and the elongated marks simply show the viewer where the object is in the field.

edit: To be honest after looking through that video, the guy doing the "analysis" is not doing a good job at all, and doesn't seem to realise that he is already working with heavily processed images - that are being made to look good to our eyes and are not the original image. It annoys me that people try to make assumptions about an object that can't be upheld due to noisy images that simply do not have enough data present in the image to base those assumptions on. c.f. The Face on Mars.

Nothing useful to see here.

I have a bit of a problem with this answer in bold above. I have checked everywhere and i cannot find any information anywhere that say's comets are marked in this way as the two elongated lights are the same intensity as the comet in the middle.

Can you provide information as to the case in regards to "added marks to show the viewer where the comet is" please ? i cannot find any such thing that was done for previous comets, also the markers and the comet are obscured buy the outer dust coma so if the markers were meant for the viewer to see where the comet is then why is it obscured ? valid question i think. Also, can you show me previous comets with said/same markers ? thanks.

jfSDAS

hi zenno,

I did a few searches but surprisingly there was very few images thrown up in Google with a comet nucleus indicated by tick marks. However, I did find a couple of examples on Gary Kronk's web site at http://cometography.com/lcomets/2012s1.html -- these are earlier images of the comet though.

Most of the time you'll see those marks indicating the position of supernovae in other galaxies or an asteroid in a star field. Lots of examples of those online.

I suspect the video author took an image which already had tick marks added and processed that. If they had used an original without the marks then ...

re: the second question about the markers being obscured by the outer coma, I think we'd need to look at how the author processed the image and what was the original raw file used (despite them going through various steps in the clip I really would need to see the original source of the data). The only other explanation is trailing of the nucleus if the scope was tracking on the stars instead of the comet but the lines are too straight and at right-angles for that to be the case.

In short, I don't think we are seeing fragmentation of the nucleus of S1 ISON. It's just too far out and nowhere near active enough yet for the nucleus to break up due outgassing or gravitational forces (it hasn't passed near any planet for the latter to happen).

Hope the above helps!

John

zenno

jfSDAS wrote: »

hi zenno,

I did a few searches but surprisingly there was very few images thrown up in Google with a comet nucleus indicated by tick marks. However, I did find a couple of examples on Gary Kronk's web site at http://cometography.com/lcomets/2012s1.html -- these are earlier images of the comet though.

Most of the time you'll see those marks indicating the position of supernovae in other galaxies or an asteroid in a star field. Lots of examples of those online.

I suspect the video author took an image which already had tick marks added and processed that. If they had used an original without the marks then ...

re: the second question about the markers being obscured by the outer coma, I think we'd need to look at how the author processed the image and what was the original raw file used (despite them going through various steps in the clip I really would need to see the original source of the data). The only other explanation is trailing of the nucleus if the scope was tracking on the stars instead of the comet but the lines are too straight and at right-angles for that to be the case.

In short, I don't think we are seeing fragmentation of the nucleus of S1 ISON. It's just too far out and nowhere near active enough yet for the nucleus to break up due outgassing or gravitational forces (it hasn't passed near any planet for the latter to happen).

Hope the above helps!

John

Thanks, and nicely explained.

It would be great to get the original, but i'm not sure if we can get it. At this stage it does seem that they are markers after-all.

Well that's problem solved as far as i see it, but it did make me very curious at the time.

Aiel

There's an article in this month's edition of Astronomy Now about it. Also in the editorial of the mag the editor does admit to being drawn in by the hype late last year and they have now lowered their expectations for it quite a bit. Some were saying it would be as bright as the moon, (mag-16).Now they think it might be just as bright as Venus is and that it will be very low in the Southwest after Sunset so if you don't have a view of the South-western horizon you might not see it. The magazine also has a few expert opinion's on what they think will happen. Its interesting that nobody really stuck their neck out either way and said if it will be good or not, simply because you cant make that call yet.
Interesting to read about why it's not named after anyone. Usually they are named after the person who discovered them but the 2 Russian astronomers who were scanning that part of the sky failed to notice it and so they missed out on the opportunity to have it named after them. It also wasn't noticed initially by 2 other scans of that part of the sky by other organisations and was only noticed when they went back to look to see was it there after it was first announced. How many others have been missed?:)

zenno

Aiel wrote: »

There's an article in this month's edition of Astronomy Now about it. Also in the editorial of the mag the editor does admit to being drawn in by the hype late last year and they have now lowered their expectations for it quite a bit. Some were saying it would be as bright as the moon, (mag-16).Now they think it might be just as bright as Venus is and that it will be very low in the Southwest after Sunset so if you don't have a view of the South-western horizon you might not see it. The magazine also has a few expert opinion's on what they think will happen. Its interesting that nobody really stuck their neck out either way and said if it will be good or not, simply because you cant make that call yet.
Interesting to read about why it's not named after anyone. Usually they are named after the person who discovered them but the 2 Russian astronomers who were scanning that part of the sky failed to notice it and so they missed out on the opportunity to have it named after them. It also wasn't noticed initially by 2 other scans of that part of the sky by other organisations and was only noticed when they went back to look to see was it there after it was first announced. How many others have been missed?:)

It worries me what other stuff they are missing, including asteroids

Popoutman

Here's the explanation from STSCI themselves on why this image is as it is. It's a result of both the comet and the Hubble moving relative to each other and to the star background. The image in the OP's post consists of multiple images stacked, and leaves out some of the images used - explaining the gaps in the trail.

Pretty interesting.

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=jbLe6kEd6mE

just caught this.

http://www.universetoday.com/104511/no-images-of-comet-ison-from-deep-impactepoxi-spacecraft-due-to-communication-loss/