Comet Mcnaught

[Simon W]

*** Tue. 30th (Today) evening and Wed. 31st Morning Times and finder chart***
On Page 3, Scroll down to post #38

You've probably seen this on the news earlier this week, but the news has gone cold while the comet has gone red hot!

I sure hope you guys are watching this comet, because the chances of you ever seeing something like this again are very small.

If you looked at it a couple of days ago while it was in the news and haven't bothered since, look again!
If you were around to see Halleys and you were very disappointed, then this one more than makes up for it.
If you saw Hale-Bopp in 1997 and thought it was impressive, this sh!ts on that.
If you were fortunate enough to see Ikeya-Seki in 1965 - this is on a par, some say its better.

Absolutelly amazing.
I've been watching every night now for 5 nights and it just gets better and better.

To find it this evening (Friday 19th) just look above where the sun has set. About 5 to 15 mins after it has set the comet should come out of the skyglow and be visible.
At about 9pm you would be hard pushed to miss it.

No telescope or binoculars are needed, just a pair of eyes, young or old.
A couple of days ago(15th + 16th), the comet could be seen during the day!

This evening the sun sets around 8:25pm, and the comet will set around 9:50pm.
Adding to the spectacle, there will be an extremely thin crescent moon not far away, it may be hard to see. (Moon will set around 8:45pm)

For us Sandgropers in Perth, the news isn't great as there are clouds forecast for today, but then we know how good the weatherman is so we might luck out. Even so, it should still be great over the coming weekend.

To give you an idea of what to expect, check out some great photo's:
Here is the best shot I've seen so far by Kevin Crause of South Africa. Full Size
and Here Is an Australian forum of amateur photo's, some of them are bloody good.

Good luck,
Simo


BTW, the comets discoverer, Rob McNaught, is an Australian.

 

[Simon W]

Ok, THIS is the new best shot!:
Graham Palmer from New Zealand

 

[pint of lager]

Thanks for that Simon.

We really want to see it, but have had storms and cloud in the west the last few evenings. The rain is very much needed, but the storms have been starting fires keeping everyone busy.

All going well, we will go to our mountaintop with a few beers and enjoy the view this evening.

 

[jupiter]

i was out on wednesday night after going out monday and tuesday to have a look without success. finally saw it on wednesday when i realised it was hiding behind a tree from my monday/tuesday vantage point.

it is an amazing sight.

 

[Simon W]

All going well, we will go to our mountaintop with a few beers and enjoy the view this evening.

Lets hope the weather gods are on your side. Maybe a sacrifice will help?


A couple of ammendments:
The times posted before are for Perth and include daylight savings time, Sydney will be close, Melbourne and Adelaide the comet will set a bit later, north of Perth and Sydney, setting earlier.

For example: (assuming all states have DST? if not, times will be one hour earlier),
Brisbane sunset tonight is 7:45pm, Comet set at approx 9pm.
Sydney sunset 8:05pm, Comet set approx. 9:40pm
Melbourne at 8:40pm, Comet at 10:25pm
Adelaide at 8:30pm, Comet at 10:05pm
Canberra at 8:20pm, Comet at 9:55pm
Perth at 8:25pm and Comet at 9:50pm

Hobart and Darwin, sorry, I'll try and get hold of some Lat+Long coordinates for you and give you times for tomorrow night(Sat.)

Look above and to the left of where the Sun set. At sunset it will be just under 15degree's above the horizon. If you look straight up, thats 90degrees ofcourse, so 1/4 of the way from the horizon to vertical (think of the sky as a dome), or half of half way

The Moon might be easy to spot with Earth shine(like Moonshine, but from us to it.) But the thin crescent might be hard to see.

The bright 'star' at around the same hight as the comet, but to the right of the sunset (Comet on the left), is the planet Venus, the brightest thing in the sky after the Sun and Moon.

Simo

Finder chart:

EDIT: added chart.

 

[spog]

saw it monday and wednesday night,cant see bugger all now because of the cloud....cheers....spog..

 

[pint of lager]

Wow. Finally saw it tonight and it is spectacular. The tail was very long and smeared across the sky. This is from a rural setting with zero light pollution.

Bad news, we didn't get to sit on our mountaintop with a few beers to watch it set, we were on a fireground, not far from home but a very hard 4wd track to access, then a hard walk in with hand tools. Dry firefighting. Only arrived home at 11pm and will be back on the fireground at 6am tomorrow morning. Weather forecast is bad, 36 deg and gusty winds. Not going to be a good day.

We will probably get to see the comet again tomorrow night from the fireground. Going to be a long hard hot day. Bit far to lug a keg.

 

[Simon W]

Woohoo POL! great stuff. Should be similar if not better tonight.

Shame about the fire though, I'd love to get my hands on a deliberate firestarter. Oooh yeah.

 

[Simon W]

Times and finder chart(scroll down) for Sat 20th:

Hobart sunset @ 8:45pm, Comet sets @ 11:05pm
Darwin @ 7:15pm, comet sets @ 8:05pm
Brisbane @ 6:45pm, comet sets @ 8:10
Sydney @ 8:05pm, comet sets @ 9:50pm
Melbourne @ 8:40pm, comet sets @ 10:40pm
Adelaide @ 8:30pm, comet sets @ 10:20pm
Canberra @ 8:20pm, comet sets @ 10:10pm
Perth @ 8:25pm. comet sets @ 10:05pm

Note that DST (or lack of) has been factored.
Setting times for the comet are for its head(Coma), the tail will still be visible for some time after.
The comet probably wont be easily seen right after sunset, but when twilight is over and the comet is almost setting, it will be very bright and easilly seen.


A nice pic of pretty much what I could see last night over the Indian Ocean is Here

The top two photo's were taken last night by the man himself, discoverer Rob McNaught.
Further down the page is some older photo's and a bit of info about the man and the comet if anyone is interested.

More great Amateur astronomer/photographer photo's from last night are Here.

I've taken a lot of photo's myself over the last week, all are on B+W film.
One roll is developed, two more tomorrow. Will try doing some prints then scan on the flatbed, not ideal but best I can do at the moment.
Anyone in Perth got a negative scanner I can use/borrow?

Finder chart for Sat 20th Jan '07:

Note that positions may vary slightly depending on your location, but is close enough.
Chart correct for Perth.

 

[Simon W]

Dunno if anyone cares anymore, but incase there's still people wanting to have a look, here's the info for tonight, Sun 21st.

Hobart sunset @ 8:40pm, Comet sets @ 11:25pm
Darwin @ 7:15pm, comet sets @ 8:12pm
Brisbane @ 6:45pm, comet sets @ 8:18pm
Sydney @ 8:05pm, comet sets @ 10:02pm
Melbourne @ 8:40pm, comet sets @ 10:55pm
Adelaide @ 8:27pm, comet sets @ 10:30pm
Canberra @ 8:17pm, comet sets @ 10:20pm
Perth @ 8:23pm. comet sets @ 10:12pm

Again, comet will show up out of the twilight about 10 or 15mins after sunset, and the best time to see it, when it's tail will be most visible, would be 15mins or so before the comet sets.

Here are some more awesome photo's, this time by the comet's co-discoverer Gordon Garradd, including one of the discoverer taking a photo of his comet.
http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~rmn/C2006P1new.htm

Finder chart for tonight:

 

[Linz]

Well,

Not quite on topic but last night, at my 40th party, recieved the cert that 'Hipparcos 55466' is now known as, and named 'Lindsay Sbrana(AKA Linz)'...

Not too sure how ligit it is, but thru some mob that does this thing....

Im stoked..

 

[Simon W]

Cool, Happy Birthday Linz!!!

It's brightish at 7.36mag (magnitude), but below the threshold of human vision(approx 6mag), might be visible in good binoculars(min 7x50) from a dark site away from city light pollution.
A telescope will definatelly pick it up. If you know someone with a telescope, the position data is below(J2000 and Date)

To give you an idea where it is, the pink arrow is pointing right on it:

And this is where it is(just to left of label HIP 55466) in relation to the Southern Cross and the Pointers(the two very bright stars below and to the right of S.Cross)

Those images are how the stars will look for NSW at 9:50pm tonight, incase you're out looking at the comet

Some more info:
Star
HIP 55466
Visual Magnitude: 7.36
Color Index: 1.09
Spectral Class: K0IV
Distance: 709.0 light years
J2000 RA: 11h21m33.77s DE:-6113'34.7"
Date RA: 11h21m52.61s DE:-6115'54.1"

So you can go there, if you can travel for 709 years at the speed of light! (300,000 kilometers per second!)

Simo

 

[Simon W]

Times and chart for Mon 22nd.
This thread is probably dead and I'm probably flogging a dead horse.
Granted, it was never really alive, but the 'Views' counter is still slowly ticking over, so I'll continue.

The comet is gonna be around for some time(maybe a month?), but it's getting dimmer fast, so last chances to get a good look with just your eyes and no binoculars or a telescope in the next couple of days.
The Sunset times don't change a whole lot, so check the last post if need be.

Not comet related, but last night the planet Venus passed behind the Moon(an occultation). If you click HERE you will see an awesome photo of the crescent of Venus, dwarfed by the very close crescent Moon! Looks kinda like the thing you see in Sci-Fi movies! (two Suns etc)
Venus is inside Earth's orbit around the Sun(along with Mercury) so it shows phases like our moon, depending on it's position in relation to us around the Sun. Right now it's on the part of it's orbit that passes between us and the Sun.


Times and chart:

The following times here are for comet set only, best view is probably 15-20 mins before set time:
Hobart @ 11:35pm
Darwin @ 8:10pm
Brisbane @ 8:25pm
Sydney @ 10:12pm
Melbourne @ 11:08pm
Adelaide @ 10:40pm
Canberra @ 10:32pm
Perth @ 10:22pm

Finder chart: (@ sunset)

A few more good photo's are HERE

This comet has almost been an exclusive event for those of us in the southern hemisphere. So all the American websites have filled up with photo's from Australia, New Zealand and S.Africa! LOL
The Americans have pretty much missed out on the spectacle, but over the last few days the tail has been poking up over their horizon and they've been taking PHOTO's
Hardly compare to ours! LOL
Ahh I shouldn't be so anti-American.

 

[browndog]

Thanks for the heads up on the comet Simon, I thought I had missed it due to cloud, but after reading your post, took the Missus and young bloke up to the top of the local water tower where there were about 100 people waiting. First time I've seen a comet and was thoroughly impressed.

cheers

Browndog

 

[Kai]

Absolutely stunning in the riverland tonight. Almost as if the tail was smeared across half the sky.

 

[pint of lager]

Thanks for the updates and links Simon. Definitely not a dead horse.

The board is so active these days that threads very quickly drop below the radar.

I propose that once a month, every light in the city is turned off for an hour to allow you city folk to see the stars. But with all the smog, it may not make much difference.

 

[Stuster]

Not a dead horse, Simon. Thanks for posting up the info. Without it, several people wouldn't have seen it. My wife and I got to see the comet a few days ago. We're in the city, so it's not as spectacular as it could be, but still special none the less. My mother is out in the country and after I told her where and when to look she was amazed and very happy to have seen it. Hopefully, there'll be no cloud to obscure it in the next couple of days and I can get a final view.

Love your idea, PoL. Need bumper stickers for it. I look at stars and I vote.

 

[Airgead]

OK.. here's my fairly crappy effort -

Taken with a pissy little canon compact digital under light poluted skies and a less than ideal skyline. Anyone else done better?

F5.5 and 15s at iso200 for the geeky.

Cheers
Dave

 

[mobrien]

I took a couple of OK ones a couple of nights back from Mount Cootha in Brissy - Als_world took some better ones, but I'll let him post them!

 

[Tony M]

Great thread Simon. You raised my awareness of this spectacle after I had given up on that first cloudy night. I think that that Japanese named one (Akea-Ceti?) in the mid sixties was more spectacular as it was in the Eastern sky at 3AM and they turned the streetlights off at 1.20AM in those days. Of course they say that your first experience of anything is always the most memorable.