Posted on 10/10/2013 9:24:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: How impressive will Comet ISON become? No one is sure, but unfortunately, as the comet approaches the inner Solar System, it is brightening more slowly than many early predictions. Pictured above, Comet ISON is seen about two weeks ago as it continued to develop a tail. Last week the comet passed relatively close to Mars, and was directly imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. When Comet ISON dives to within a few solar radii of the Sun's surface in late November, it may become brighter than the Moon and sport a long and flowing tail -- or it may appear somewhat less spectacular. Either way, sky enthusiasts hope that whatever comet parts survive will put on quite an impressive show, as viewed from Earth, through at least the rest of the year.
(Excerpt) Read more at asterisk.apod.com ...
[Credit & Copyright: Damian Peach]
How many “pictures of the day” do we need?
Looks like a headlight.
I got a few days behind.
Wow how beautiful God’s creation is =)
The camera lens has a smudge on it.
How many pictures of the day do we need?
You are rude.
As always, great photos, Sunken Civ. Thank you.
These are great photos.
Thanks for posting.
Thank you so much, SunkenCiv!
This is a treat!
Is it visible to the naked eye (or maybe a set of 10x binos) yet? Where should I look? Thanks
It is still down, right?
Funny, I spent about 10 minutes poking around troubleshooting it (APOD is my home page) when I had the head-slapping moment: “Aw, geez...it is a government funded website...”
Probably one of the few things the government funds that I wholly enjoy.
Yeah I’m a little irritated that a lot of the mission pages are down. JPL Mission pages are still operational.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php
Thank you for your faithfulness!
((((HUGS))))
I’ve set up an ez-post with the new temp links, now I’ve got to get to posting and pinging. :’)
No worries! Alas, it’ll be some hours before I manage to get today’s taken care of. :’(
I almost broke down and bought one of the many magazines with Comet ISON as their covers this month. Best two appeared to be “Sky and Telescope” (always prefer that to “Astronomy”, in case anyone cares) and “Discover” mag has a special extra issue entirely devoted to Comet ISON. “Astronomy” and about three or four other mags also featured it, amazing, y’know, because it’s really just a comet, it’s not going to hit Earth (this time).
My observation of the event is to watch NatGeog’s mid-1990s “Asteroids” DVD, it’s really a professional bio of the late Eugene Shoemaker and his relationships with his wife and David Levy (the three of them discovered SL-9, the comet that broke up then augered into Jupiter back in 1994). It’s been years (late 90s) since I viewed a comet, hope this ISON is good.
Thanks l, but it’s all taken care of above. :’)
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