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To: RightWhale; Howlin
"The thing about this is that the impact might be visible from earth across most of the US, and to the naked eye."

You're the second person on FR that has told me that. The article I read didn't mention that but, said it would be visible through telescopes. There will be a number of serious 'scopes' on it though...The Hubble, Chandra and etc. will be viewing/recording the impact. We'll get some very good pictures. The article I read said that images of the incident would be on the internet 15 minutes after impact.

26 posted on 07/02/2005 11:34:57 AM PDT by blam
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To: blam
images of the incident would be on the internet 15 minutes after impact.

This will probably lead to some confusion. The target is about 2 AU from earth, which means that light will take about 15 minutes to arrive here after impact.

As to whether the dust cloud of the impact will be visible: the comet is magnitude 9.7 right now. The limit of naked eye visibility is mag 6. If the dust cloud is 6 or brighter, it should be visible. But this brings up the problem of light pollution. Many people rarely see stars dimmer than mag 4 or even 3 due to light pollution. If there were no light pollution then many could see the event. With light pollution, few would see it. I expect sightings will be rare in the extreme.

27 posted on 07/02/2005 11:44:14 AM PDT by RightWhale (withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
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To: blam

It will be extremely easy to find, though. Giving directions should be a snap.


28 posted on 07/02/2005 11:51:08 AM PDT by RightWhale (withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
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To: blam

Guilty! :-)

But I swear I heard that on my local radio station!


29 posted on 07/02/2005 11:59:32 AM PDT by Howlin
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To: blam

It will be a new moon, though, which I believe would have been included in the mission parameters deliberately.


33 posted on 07/02/2005 1:17:19 PM PDT by RightWhale (withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
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