Christmas comet

keu

http://serviastro.am.ub.es/comets/c2004Q2_eng.html#info
comet Machholz supposed to be in the skys around now, anybody spot it?
have been keeping an eye out for it, haven't seen anything yet.

Flukey

I've seen it over the past few nights with my binoculars. It is a bit hazy, as is the weather, and added to that the full moon, all make it hard to see clearly. Without binoculars, there is no way I could see it at present. I am in hte suburbs of Dublin, but even so, it is very faint and only for I knew where to look, you wouldn't notice it at all. It is moving over the past few nights, that much I could say. It is meant to be gettting brighter over the next while and as the moon wanes, it will be come easier to see.

albertw

Before the moon was full, it was fairly easy to see. I havent looked for the past few days. A map of the positions is at http://www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/files/1103587497-Macholz-2.pdf

Also if you are up early in the morning for the next week or so, Mercury is fairly easily visible next to venus.


Cheers,
~Al

Flukey

I got another binoculars view of it tonight. It is still hard to see. By next week it should be a lot better as the moon becomes less of an influence. It has moved a lot over the last few nights.

hamster

I have been looking for the last few nights with binoculars (12x50) and had no luck so far in finding the comet. Looking for web info suggests the 10th of Jan is the best day for it (as mentioned) and a new moon will help further. I attached a shot from Starry Night (one hellva cool program this). The comet is moving up a bit every night. Easy to locate using Betelguese and Bellatrix from Orion to point to it.
What is the best one can expect at the moment? A faint point I guess... I tried hard last night... and thats all I saw. I'm very new to this but it's interesting to follow the news on this.

Flukey

It is climbing quite quickly over the past few nights. It is still just a hazy, misty patch. You'll know it when you see it, but you still need to scan carefully to do so. It is well out to the right of Orion and the shield of Orion and climbing on towards the Pleiades. Next week when the moon is not so bright, it should be better. It is hard to give a reference point as the ones I've been using myself are going out of date each night as it moves further from them. The diagrams in the attachments on this thread are reasonably good guides.

albertw

Flukey wrote:

The diagrams in the attachments on this thread are reasonably good guides.

Updated for the next 2 weeks using the latest orbit details:
http://www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/files/1104445863-Machholz-jan15.pdf

Maurice Gavin, form uk.sci.astronomy, posted some images on his website of the comet at http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/digsky.htm the images are a little brighter than it looks in binoculars.

Cheers,
~Al

hamster

albertw wrote:

Updated for the next 2 weeks using the latest orbit details:
http://www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/files/1104445863-Machholz-jan15.pdf

Maurice Gavin, form uk.sci.astronomy, posted some images on his website of the comet at http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/digsky.htm the images are a little brighter than it looks in binoculars.

Cheers,
~Al

Thanks... those shots are pretty good! Yep, know where to look but I think I need to get my eyes adjusted to total darkness for a half an hour first to have a chance!

Flukey

You won't need half an hour for your eyes to adjust. I was out looking at the comet tonight. It is really moving fast. It is now out to the right of the Hyades. There is a bright star out to the right of the Hyades and it is further to the right of that again. It is near another bright star. There is a pair of stars out to the right of it again. I had the first look at it with my telescope. It was very hazy and you could just see the core. Not the most impressive comet I've seen it has to be said.

hamster

No luck with cloud cover tonight with the rain! Hope there is a break in the weather later this week.

Seanie M

I managed to see it from the Tullamore suburbs last night. I made the following sketch seen with the Skylux 70mm F10 refractor:



Seanie.

Flukey

It is looking like it is going to be clear here tonight in Dublin. It is now. Are you in Waterford or Dublin Hamster? Saturn is a good sight at present. Very easy to find. With Castor and Pollux it makes a shape of a 5 o'clock, with Saturn at the 5 position. You can also see its moons. When you are looking at the comet, the Hyades is great at present too as is the Pleiades. Jupiter is a fine sight later in the night. Winter is always great for stargazing, with the long nights, but also with better constellations on view. Now if only it wasn't so cold on those clear nights!

hamster

Flukey,

I'm outside Waterford (20 miles) in a dark rural area so it should be perfect. I'll look again if the sky is clear tonight. Thanks for directional pointers.

Flukey

You are well placed to see things then. The only problem with rural areas is that because you can see far more stars than in an urban area, it can be sometimes a bit harder to pick something specific out. If you have not already done so, buy yourself a good star atlas which will help you locate things a lot easier. Over time you will get to know things a lot better and then it becomes easier to find things. Register yourself on www.heavens-above.com which will give information on what to see from where you are. Have a look at the main site mentioned in albertw's post above www.irishastronomy.org . There are a number of other Irish astronomy websites too and probably a club somewhere in the Waterford area. Just did a quick search and found this: www.geocities.com/bauschandlombastronomysociety/BLAS.html

albertw

Flukey wrote:

There are a number of other Irish astronomy websites too and probably a club somewhere in the Waterford area. Just did a quick search and found this: www.geocities.com/bauschandlombastronomysociety/BLAS.html

BLAS unfortunately is just for employees of Bausch and Lombe. However they have formed another club!

www.deiseastronomy.com went up last night, though most of the content hasn't yet!, so they would probably be your nearest club.

Cheers,
~Al

keu

good timing.

Flukey

I was on irishastronomy.org and there is a mention of Decies club there, but no links. I am sure Hamster will find something in the Waterford area. Even if he doesn't it is a hobby that you can do all on your own, especially if people you know don't like standing in the cold! It is nice to show others the wonders of space though. I had some of my nephews and nieces visiting over the weekend and some of them got the chance to look at the night sky with my binoculars and telescope. They loved it.

keu

I'm in Waterford too, so I appreciate the links. All I have is a pair of binoculars and could do with some advise and direction. Will have to get myself a decent telescope, something I've wanted since I was a child. I've found my new hobby.

hamster

Thanks for the pointers, Flukey.

That I found free version of Starry Night. I really really like this program. It really helps! In case anyone is interested, it came with a copy of Pc Pro (jan issue 2005 / issue no 123).

The other night I had it on the laptop outside and I was able to learn more in one night than I every learnt looking at the stars. I find it was most useful identifying the dimmer stars. For example, with this christmas comet now... it drew my attention to the Pleiades Star Cluster. In the past I occasionally glimpsed at it as a tiny version of dipper.
It's actually astro pic of the day today!

I had the binoculars with me as well and they help a lot (ie, looking at Orion's belt). My sight isn't the best in the world but the binoculars helped in noticing "3 vertical stars" making up Orion's lower body. I was able to make out that the top 2 were fuzzy and I thought it was my eyesight... but I was amazed to see the "fuzzy" nebulae here too.

I'm afraid we have bad skies again tonight. Oh well.

Just wondered if any of you guys use Celestia? This a pretty configurable amazing program. http://bruckner.homelinux.net/celestia.html (I think it's down at the moment)... but can be got at source net. It even has orbits for the voyagers, iss and cassini (and the huygens probe) for example.

Keu,
I find Cloudy's night forums very good. I found some links for telescope advice
there too. A very Good forum. http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=1,2,3,4,5,8,9,10

Flukey

I have Celestia, but I have not used it very much. It was mentioned in a thread here recently, so I downloaded it. Keu, you want some advice and direction. Well if you have a pair of binoculars, the direction is up!

Seriously, the usual advice is applicable, namely get used to looking at different things in the sky with the binoculars and get to know your way around. Look at the different websites on astronomy. At this stage just use them to get the basic information. Get some books. If you got any book tokens over Christmas, use them for this purpose. Even if you don't have any, have a look around the book shops. Get yourself a good star atlas, that you can carry around with you. All these things will help you.

Even with binoculars you will see a lot, so wait until you have a fairly good knowledge of what you can see before even considering getting a telescope. Binoculars are great in their own right. A telescope, while giving you a better view of many things, won't give you those really breathtaking views of the planets that we often see in books, magazines etc., unless you get a really big one. This is the type of view I get from my telescope of Saturn, taken from stills of a little footage I took using my palmcorder and my telescope:



They are better than what you see with the naked eye or binoculars and it is amazing to see this, but they are nothing compared to the really big telescopes. Mine is a 70mm. Here are some of the other photos I have taken using it, my palmcorder and my digital camera:

http://homepage.eircom.net/~flukey/AstronomyPage.htm

So stick with your binoculars for a while. A set of 10 x 50 are about the best size for views and portability. Portability and the ability to swing round and look at things very quickly are among the advantages of binoculars over telescopes. Even when you do own a telescope you still use binoculars a lot and they are essential to help you pinpoint something to aim the telescope at. Another thing is that the telescope will show you so much that sometimes you aren't sure if you are looking at what you want to see. The books never show as much as you will see with them, so it can be hard to pinpoint those less prominent objects when there are so many other things around them. But that is part of the fascination of astronomy, being able to see so much when you look at the night sky.:)

You two guys should get together, if you are near enough to each other. You can then do some stargazing. You can be your own little Waterford astronomy club.

keu

I loved the images. re: the venus tranist..I had two pieces of card, one with a pinhole in and I was up at some ungodly hour waiting for it. I did..(truthfully) catch a glimpse of the black dot entering the edge of the disc, as for the first five minutes the skys were clear.
(thought it was a bit of rough card edge first, but in comparison to the images on tv it was spot on) my moment of 2004.

Danno

Will the comet be able to be seen by the naked eye at any stage - when is the peak? Where do I look? - East, West...???

albertw

Danno wrote:

Will the comet be able to be seen by the naked eye at any stage - when is the peak? Where do I look? - East, West...???

Its visibile to the naked eye now from a dark sky. Mind you it looks like a slightly fuzzy star and is not that impressive when compared to usual comet images.

You need to look roughly south, the star maps listed on this thread will show you exactly where to look.

Cheers,
~Al

hamster

albertw wrote:

Its visibile to the naked eye now from a dark sky. Mind you it looks like a slightly fuzzy star and is not that impressive when compared to usual comet images.

You need to look roughly south, the star maps listed on this thread will show you exactly where to look.

Cheers,
~Al

Hey! The comet is today's attention Astro pic of the day.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Flukey

A good photo Hamster, unfortunately nothing like what we could see. I went looking for a copy of the January issue of Pc Pro on Tuesday, but could not get one. Only a few places stocked Pc Pro at all and although it was only January 4th, they already had the February issue in. I know it is the standard practice to publish a magazine in the month before its edition month, but that is ridiculous. I might try again, but I would not hold out much hope.

Flukey

I was just outside looking at the comet a few moments ago. It is now very close to, but just below the Pleiades. It is a very obvious hazy patch and does appear to be brighter now than when I first found it and it has certainly moved considerably since then. If you see this soon and it is clear where you are, go out and have a look.

albertw

Flukey wrote:

I was just outside looking at the comet a few moments ago. It is now very close to, but just below the Pleiades.

It will be closest on Friday iirc. Forecast is cloudy for Ireland, but there will likley be some spectacular pictures online over the weekend.

Cheers,
~Al

hamster

Flukey wrote:

I was just outside looking at the comet a few moments ago. It is now very close to, but just below the Pleiades. It is a very obvious hazy patch and does appear to be brighter now than when I first found it and it has certainly moved considerably since then. If you see this soon and it is clear where you are, go out and have a look.

Flukey,

Yeah I went out around 11pm, I saw a very blurry point underneath the Pleiades. Almost directly underneath and very slightly to the left (although I thought I should been looking underneath to the right). There was occasional cloud cover but I think I saw it.Guess that was the best chance as weather promises to be bad for the next few days.

Flukey

Yes that was it alright. It was down close to Orion and it has been going up and away from it, so it would be below and left of the Pleiades. If it is clear tonight have a look again, slightly up and right of where you saw it last night. I could just about see it with the naked eye after I had found it with binoculars. It should be a bit easier where you are, and you'll have no problem with binoculars.

hamster

Hey,

I came across some rather interesting information on the comet here Pretty good background info too.

Flukey

Good stuff that.