Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all,
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.
Comet NeoWise
Options
Comments
-
Closest to Earth doesn't really mean much -- it's still fading as it recedes from the Sun. You're not going to see it from Dun Laoghaire with the naked eye. Recent observations put the magnitude between 3.5 and 4.0 (www.cobs.si):
On the best of those clear pollution-free nights during lockdown, I reckon the limiting visual magnitude from the vicinity of Dun Laoghaire was lower than 3.5. And for NEOWISE you're looking toward the city lights. Plus, it looks dimmer than a star of the same magnitude because it's more diffuse.
To cap it all, the weather prospects are poor too. But if you're determined to go hunting, arm yourself with Stellarium on your phone and a pair of binoculars. You'll need to star hop a bit to get to the comet. I found it with difficulty on Sunday night under pretty good conditions. But you really need a good clear sky, else you will see nothing but streetlight orange. Those at properly dark sites should still be able to see it with the naked eye.0 -
-
-
-
After being cursed for weeks with Clouds and other commitments I finally managed to image the Comet on Friday morning at a dark site where skies were mostly clear. The comet had sadly dimmed considerably compared to a few days before that - as the graph posted in an earlier post shows - It was great to see it finally nonetheless, a fuzzy object by naked eye but tails still visible with 10x50 binoculars.
Those pictures are stacks images at various ISO and exposure time settings at 14mm and 50mm
0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
igCorcaigh wrote: »Skies seem clear enough.
Where should I look? NNE?
How far above the horizon at this time?
This is the position Stellarium reckons for around 11 PM. It's the really small dot to the left of the text label. Direction is roughly WNW - 298° and 26° up.0 -
Went out last night with binoculars and reckon ye're right, Dun Laoghaire is just too bright. Although based on the photos above, it's a lot lower down from the Plough from where I was looking - I was actually out with a friend and we were both remarking on how the media is kind of all over the place with this in terms of telling you where to look, and based on a few different articles we got the impression it was a lot closer to the Plough, just to the right of it. But based on these photos, we'd never have seen it anyway because once you're looking that far down the horizon, the lights along the DART line kill any chance of seeing anything even on a clear night. Unfortunately I don't yet drive, having lived beside the DART and 7, 75, 46A bus routes my entire life it never had the urgency it should have, so a bit limited in where I can go to look - we found a very dark park last night, but again based on these photos we couldn't have seen the comet because the park is one of those squares surrounded by terraced houses, so anything that low on the horizon is blocked off. The one place I might still try if we get another clear night this week is the West Pier - unlike the East Pier it's not as regularly used for walking and as such isn't lit up at all at night, so I'm thinking going right down to the end of it would at least put the light pollution from the East Pier's streetlights behind me. God loves a trier, etc!
We're taking this as an awakening of sorts though because we saw a lot of other seriously cool stuff last night (including what we're fairly sure was a fly-by of the ISS!) so from now on I'm going to follow this forum and get advance notice of any astronomical events so I can have the binoculars shined and ready to go :cool: Very frustrating that the one night, July 19th, when we could probably have seen it I couldn't find the feckin' things! Never again
Perseids here we come!
EDIT: Just a thought, but would the top of Killiney Hill around the Obelisk be high enough to counteract the city light pollution on a clear night like last night? Could walk up there from where I am!0 -
Advertisement
-
spookwoman wrote: »Irish weather is testing, at least perseids are on the way
I can do a long range forecast right now that’ll be more accurate than Met.ie long range.
It’ll be wall to wall cloud from the 5th of August to the 19th of August 0 -
hatrickpatrick wrote: »EDIT: Just a thought, but would the top of Killiney Hill around the Obelisk be high enough to counteract the city light pollution on a clear night like last night? Could walk up there from where I am!
Any kind of height will help but in terms of light pollution you will have to see when up there, no telling how good it will/can be
0 -
-
-
The Wicklow Mountains are fantastic for observing........unless you want to look at anything in the Northern Sky
Sucks to be a North County Dublin observer though as you lads and lassies need to make longer trip south to the Wicklow mountains to put Dublin behind your observing backs.
Just a 10 minute drive to the back of the Sugar Loaf for me in Bray.0 -
Advertisement