Off Topic New Comet

Interesting interactive animation of a comet (Atlas) heading our way.

Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4)
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=c%2F2019%20Y4;old=0;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb

Adrian, one disaster at a time hey? Our hospitals are just not equipped for it

Kon.

From what I can see (and I might be completely wrong here), Comet C/2019 Y4 [ATLAS] appears to be visible in the northern hemisphere and will be either obscured on the horizon (or washed out by the sun until it sets) here.  I can't quite figure it out and Stellarium doesn't have it on the database from what I could see. Hmm... This is exciting and annoying at the same time.

What's your thoughts on our chances of seeing it?  From what I've read, it was only discovered in late December 2019 and may be connected to the Great Comet of 1844... since they share the same orbital path.

All good plagues need a Comet in the sky, right?  How appropriate that we get C/2019 Y4 at a time when COVID-19 is due to reach its peak in Mid May?! Please keep posting on this if you get updates!!

Some viewing info here Nero.
http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm

Atlas is brightening very rapidly and it is still out between Jupiter and Mars.
     I have notice though that a lot of comets become active when in the space between these two planets.
There must be a concentration of solar wind out there or possibly coming from Jupiter. The same thing will occur when Atlas is outward bound and reaches this current distance from the sun.
   Jupiter is almost large enough with strong enough gravity to ignite and become a star, although I don't think we have to worry about that happening any time soon.

Morning Adrian,
The commonly known morning and evening star are one and the same planet, Venus.
Why weren't they named as such? eg: Morning planet?

I dunno, ask the Romans.

They were pretty dopey back then and likely did not know that the morning and evening star/planet were one and the same
The Romans knew of seven bright objects in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, and the five brightest planets. They named them after their most important gods. Venus, the brightest planet in the night sky, was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.

I wonder who the God of morning and night were. I might have to

Quote:
(THE SIZE OF COMET ATLAS: No one knows how big the icy core of Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) might be. Possibly, it's no wider than a few kilometres. One thing's for sure, the comet's atmosphere is huge. This picture from Hisayoshi Kato of Uchiyama, Nagano, Japan, shows that it is almost as wide as the full Moon:)

Unquote:
Looks like this one is going to be a ball biter if it makes it to our neighbourhood

jeez Adrian bush fires,viruses now a comet

cheers moredeep

Explosion on the far side of the sun during sun spot minimum no less.

Compliments of SOHO.
https://www.spaceweather.com/images2020/20mar20/cme_c2_anim.gif

This one was not caused by a sun spot coz there isn't any. So what caused it?

So now we have Betelgeuse going nuts, Bush fires, corona virus A big comet and now the sun is doing weird stuff.
IYEEEEEEEEEE, or as my wife would say...EYOWA !!

It's just gotta be caused by climate change.

Comet Atlas is getting brighter by the day and now has a coma 700,000 k in diam. A few days ago it was the diam of the moon.
If it survives this outburst and settles down a bit before approaching our space then it could be a fairly special sight in Northern hem skies. Just imagine a comet large enough to engulf the earth in the coma.
Pity we in the South Hem will not get much of a view other than a look at the tail an hour before sunrise as it starts the outward bound trip...If it survives the run around the sun.

Atlas location today

From Space Weather .com

COMET ATLAS MIGHT BE FRAGMENTING: Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4), what are you doing? New data from astronomers around the world show that the once-promising comet is beginning to fade. For Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC, it could be a classic case of "I told you so."

In recent months, Comet ATLAS galvanized astronomers as it fell toward the sun, skyrocketing in brightness like few comets before it. By late May 2020 it promised to rival Venus in the sunset sky. But recent developments belie that possibility.

On April 6th, astronomers Quanzhi Ye of the University of Maryland) and Qicheng Zhang of Caltech reported new images of Comet ATLAS, in which the comet's core appears to be elongating--"as would be expected from a major disruption of the nucleus,"

Seems like comet Atlas is disintegrating:
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2020/04/14/fragments-of-comet-atlas/

Comet Swan is on its way on a similar trajectory to Atlas and is visible in Southern Hemisphere.



Interactive map here.

http://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/comet/2020F8

https://www.spaceweather.com/

Comet Swan Now and naked eye visible.

You can find it here.
Input your Lat/Lon or use the interactive map and you will be able to work out when it will be visible from your location.
https://theskylive.com/where-is-c2020f8

After travelling in from the outer solar system, Comet Swan has just brightened from magnitude 6.7 to magnitude 6.5, which is right on the cusp of naked-eye visibility. Comet Swan is currently 121,427,864 km from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius, so best seen from the southern hemisphere for the moment.

Thanks for that Adrian,i'll keep an eye out for "Norman/ swan" comet ,bloody clouds are a problem though.
We do need the wet stuff though. 


cheers   moredeep

Can find where it is here:
Have to get up early in the morning to spot it. Rises about 3:52 am.
 https://theskylive.com/riseset?obj=c2020f8
https://theskylive.com/planetarium?obj=c2020f8#ra|0.8834872072925677|dec|5.9950057039043365|fov|68

G’day Adrian,

I think we would have to be in the UK also to see it, as the time zone in your link is for the UK.


Cheers.

Mike.

Thanks Mike... I fixed that little boo boo.
Try copying the first link into your browser or click this link..
You can change the location to wherever you want it to be.
https://theskylive.com/riseset?obj=c2020f8

I've been photographing Comet Swan since last week from the end of my street.  One problem is that I'm under pre-dawn skies that are bright due to the impending sunrise (the comet is close to the rising sun) and another is that I'm in the middle of the suburbs with Sydney lights creating a lot of light pollution.  Another problem this week is the full "super moon" which is proving the be a problem if you want to see the comet's tail.  The moonlight washes out any pictures you might try to take... though it's slowly moving towards a half-moon now that the full moon has passed.


My eyes couldn't see it but the camera certainly could.  It shows up as a mint-green dot in the dawn skies.


The comet is glowing bright green on the 10x magnified view on my camera's LCD.

I think that the last suitable viewing date is supposed to be the morning of May 13 when the comet is said to be closest to the sun/earth.  It's going to be close to the rising sun and will pop up from the eastern horizon around 4:54am and should be rising directly between East and North-East.  It will rise slightly above the thick atmosphere of the horizon.  The sun rises at 6:46am-ish so the best time to see and photograph it will be around 5:45am when the sky isn't yet too bright.  Comet C/2020 SWAN will rise from exactly the same position that the sun will be rising from.  

After this date, the comet will still be in the sky for a week or two but being so close to the sun it will be tricky to photograph.  On May 19, it ought to be between the pre-dawn horizon and a somewhat thin-crescent moon - which might make for a great picture with a fairly wide lens.  May 19, 20 and 21 ought to still allow a view of the comet.  The comet is expected to reach peak brightness between May 20 and May 22. After a this it will not be visible since the sun will be in the sky at the same time as the comet.  The sun will rise before the comet does... and the comet (which will be just below the sun) will set before the sun does.  However, if the comet survives its close flyby with the sun, it's going to become visible in the skies again in June.  Now by then, the sun will set and the comet ought to become visible in the night sky for a few hours after sunset.


The comet shot that I got took 54 photographs (2.5 second exposures) stacked together to bring out a little of the tail (which is now said to be much longer).
Taken with my Canon M6 mirrorless with EF 135mm f/2 STM lens on a regular tripod.

FANTASTIC NEWS: There's another comet on the way that was discovered on March 27, 2020 called Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE).  This retrograde, long-period comet is increasing in brightness and is expected to reach perihelion and its maximum brightness of up to 2.5 magnitude in Early July.  My astro charts show it to be in an ideal spot between West and North-West right after sunset from around the date of July 1.

Nice shot there Nero.
Be interesting to see what happens to this comet as it comes closer to the sun.
Atlas fell apart early out around the orbit of Mars. This one is on a similar path but appears to be holding together.
Minus 1 deg C this morning so could not motivate myself to get out for a look.

adrian ss wrote:Nice shot there Nero.
Be interesting to see what happens to this comet as it comes closer to the sun.
Atlas fell apart early out around the orbit of Mars.  This one is on a similar path but appears to be holding together.
   Minus 1 deg C this morning so could not motivate myself to get out for a look.

You probably didn't miss anything other than what feels like frostbite. The comet got brighter a few days ago and then dimmed considerably to around 5.8 magnitude.

I just went outside at 5:15am to photograph Comet Swan a couple of hours ago - and I simply couldn't find it in the bright moonlight with a rising sun causing the sky to brighten. It was in some of my pictures but I had to go home and download them to be able to find it. It appeared as a very faint smudge in the pictures I took with a wider lens. I'd even brought a gunsight and a longer lens with me but it was pointless as I couldn't find it in the sky with my eyes or my camera. Not sure I'll have any better luck tomorrow either because the comet is moving towards the horizon now and most of the pictures will wash out for sure. Tomorrow will be the last day to try to capture it. It's apparently developing a second tail but I'm not sure if that second tail is a dust or and ionic tail.

I'm a bit fed up with putting myself out to catch comets in winter skies before sunrise. Why is it that the folks in the Northern Hemisphere seem to get the better viewing conditions every time these things show up in the sky?

It is getting a bit chilly here and I missed the comet yesterday due to cloudy conditions.
Will try again tomorrow morn with the 7 x 50s. Probably the last chance to spot it from here before it disappears into the sun rise.Might be able to see it about 10 or 15 degrees ahead of the sunrise above azimuth  68 deg somewhere if lucky.

Went out at 5:30 but a nice cloud bank rose up over the horizon just as I was setting up the camera and continued to grow.
  So pointed the cam at a random spot in the sky where there was zero cloud and all I found were satellites everywhere.
This in one 18 sec exp where I could not actually see any sats.

PS:
What are the wriggly trails?

You have a genuine mystery there!  The first shot shows some lateral movement from the tripod that I can see... but that doesn't equate to the squiggly lines.... which appear to be a satellite.  I have NEVER seen such a strange flight-line before. You have something VERY unique there.  I'd be sending that in to the Sydney Observatory (or some online Astro group) to ask them what it light possibly be.  One theory I might offer is that the tripod appears to have been bumped in the first image... As the vibrations slowly began to calm down, the wobbling of the lens became less and this ended up with a brighter stronger trail in the sky.   You have me at a complete loss here.  In the second image, I can see the trail from the top satellite is starting to squiggle at the left hand side of the streak so it's possible your exposure caught the three satellite trails at different moments during the same exposure... and the vibration of the tripod overlapped with two of those.  I try to use a self timer to prevent tripod vibration but I often forget.

I've only been out a few times this year to photograph the Night Sky and each time I have noticed more and more satellites.  The last time i went out to photograph the comet, I could literally see the satellites moving across the LCD when I tried to line it up with the comet. Several hundred satellites were launched from Elon Musk's SpaceX company over the last three months and those things are polluting the night skies. This is becoming a nightmare for those of us who enjoy astrophotography but NASA's scientist are just as furious because all their expensive telescopes are now affected.  With thousands more of these satellites being prepped for deployment in space, things are going to get much worse for us.

I really hope this new comet (Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE) has the juice to put on a good show for us.  It's at least good to know that they are finding new comets every few months and this means there's always a chance for us to catch something amazing in the night sky.  Those out in the goldfields, away from the city lights, ought to get the best show.

Spot on Nero.
Re the first pic. I bumped the tripod at the beginning of the exposure which caught the star link sat as it passed through the frame. It was already in the frame at the beginning of the exp.
In The second shot I bumped the tripod after the two straight satellite trails had already crossed the field of view and just as the wriggly starlink sat entered the frame.... I fooled myself for a minute when I first watched the play back and thought I had snapped something exciting and then recalled nudging the tripod slightly. It was quite a brief slight nudge and I did not think it would have effected the pic but there ya go, the ole tripod is not as firm as I thought it was. Those vibrations continued for quite some time.

Very interesting Adrian, PM sent.

Cheers
Peter

Adrian.

I'm pretty sure that is spirochetes.

Axtyr.

Forgot to mention that the wriggly trail sats were moving from S to N, left to right. of the pics.
135mm x f1.8. set at f8 x 18 sec exp. FOV 10 degrees.