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Wow! Striking Green Comet Suddenly Visible in Evening Sky - Comet Swan
LiveScience.com on yahoo ^ | 10/26/06 | Robert Roy Britt

Posted on 10/26/2006 9:00:01 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

What had been a modest comet seen only with binoculars or telescopes flared up this week to become visible to the naked eye [images].

Comet Swan, as it is called, is in the western sky after sunset from the Northern Hemisphere. It remains faint, likely not easy to find under bright city lights but pretty simple to spot from the countryside.

It is a "fairly easy naked-eye comet," said Pete Lawrence, who photographed the comet from the UK. "The tail is now showing some interesting features too."

UPDATE: Late Thursday, however, Lawrence reported that the comet already may be getting dimmer. It is not clear what skywatchers should expect of this comet.

Find it

The comet, also catalogued as C/2006 M4, is about halfway up in the sky in the direction of the constellation Corona Borealis [Sky Map].

As with most comets, this one looks like a fuzzy star. It has an interesting green tint, however, indicating it has a lot of the poisonous gas cyanogen and diatomic carbon, astronomers say.

Sam Storch, a long-time sky watcher from Long Island, NY, said the comet appears "quite a bit deeper than any other green I have seen in any sky object, even planetary nebulae."

"Comet Swan is very easy to find," said Joe Rao, SPACE.com's Skywatching Columnist. "In good binoculars it appears as a bright, symmetrical and surprisingly green blob."

Legendary objects

Comets, the stuff of legend and myth, are frozen leftovers of the solar system's formation. Most orbit the Sun out beyond Neptune, but a few wander through the inner solar system now and then. As a comet gets closer to the Sun, solar radiation boils the frozen gases, along with dust, off the comet's surface. Sunlight reflects off this material, creating a head, or coma. Some comets never get very bright. Others brighten dramatically. Some even come unglued as they round the Sun.

Some comets, like Swan, also sport a tail or two. Such detail is best seen with binoculars or a small telescope.

Comet Swan was discovered last year. It makes its closest approach to Earth today. Eventually it will return to the distant reaches of the solar system. Rao said nobody knows how long the comet will grace the night sky.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; Science
KEYWORDS: comet; comet2006m4; cometswan; greencomet; swan; xplanets
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Pete Lawrence captured this stunning photograph over the skies of Selsey, West Sussex, UK on October 24, 2006. He writes “Comet Swan appears to have brightened. In magnitude +5.5 skies with incoming cloud, I estimated it to be magnitude +4.6 on the evening of the 24th October - a fairly easy naked eye comet! The tail is now showing some interesting features too.”

More pics Here.


1 posted on 10/26/2006 9:00:04 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

Nice!


2 posted on 10/26/2006 9:02:39 PM PDT by KoRn
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To: NormsRevenge
"Planet Earth about to be recycled. . . ."


3 posted on 10/26/2006 9:03:18 PM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Bopped on the head.)
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To: NormsRevenge

It's the mark of the end of times.....the omen....

whoooooohhhh....whooooooooh.....


4 posted on 10/26/2006 9:05:50 PM PDT by nevergore (“It could be that the purpose of my life is simply to serve as a warning to others.”)
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To: NormsRevenge

Beautiful..


5 posted on 10/26/2006 9:43:12 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: NormsRevenge

Saw it tonight from my back yard. I didn't have the energy to haul the scope out, but just used some 7x50 binoculars. The tail was barely detectable, but the nucleus was easy to spot.


6 posted on 10/26/2006 9:43:49 PM PDT by MarineBrat (God Bless Tonk!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Beautiful, baby....


7 posted on 10/26/2006 9:46:38 PM PDT by unspun (What do you think? Please think, before you answer.)
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To: NormsRevenge
Striking Green Comet

It's on strike? Well, at least it's environmentally friendly.

8 posted on 10/26/2006 9:59:48 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: NormsRevenge

Meh.
The comet we saw while we were cruising back home on the USS PELELIU through the Indian Ocean in '95 was bigger.
Place your palms together, put them over your head and open your arms about 3.5 feet.
That was how big that comet was. I learned years later that it had some Japanese name starting with the letter, "H." But I called it my Birthday Comet since that's when it arrived.


9 posted on 10/26/2006 10:06:22 PM PDT by RandallFlagg (Roll your own cigarettes! You'll save $$$ and smoke less!(Magnetic bumper stickers-click my name)
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To: RandallFlagg

Comet Hyakutake

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/hyakutake/

and for lots of images

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/hyakutake/images.html


10 posted on 10/26/2006 10:48:08 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... http://www.pendleton8.com/ ...... http://www.bootmurtha.com/ .. FRee Moooomia)
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To: RandallFlagg

11 posted on 10/26/2006 10:48:34 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... http://www.pendleton8.com/ ...... http://www.bootmurtha.com/ .. FRee Moooomia)
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To: NormsRevenge

So I like live in the South. What direction should I be looking tomorrow night and what time


12 posted on 10/26/2006 10:53:05 PM PDT by catholicfreeper (Geaux Tigers SEC FOOTBALL ROCKS)
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To: NormsRevenge

Yep! That was the one.


13 posted on 10/26/2006 10:59:25 PM PDT by RandallFlagg (Roll your own cigarettes! You'll save $$$ and smoke less!(Magnetic bumper stickers-click my name)
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To: catholicfreeper

It may not be viewable depending on where you live exactly.. The comet would be seen near the Corona Borealis also called the Northern Crown, http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/coronaborealis.html..

wiki has some good info as well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Borealis


14 posted on 10/26/2006 11:06:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... http://www.pendleton8.com/ ...... http://www.bootmurtha.com/ .. FRee Moooomia)
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To: NormsRevenge

Cool!


15 posted on 10/28/2006 7:53:37 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity ("A litany of complaints is not a plan." - GW Bush, referring to DNC's lack of a platform on ANYTHING)
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To: Swordmaker
Ping!
16 posted on 10/28/2006 9:39:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dhimmicrati delenda est! https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: HOTTIEBOY

FYI, something to do with your new scope.


17 posted on 10/28/2006 9:42:02 AM PDT by Toby06
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To: 75thOVI; AndrewC; Avoiding_Sulla; BenLurkin; Berosus; CGVet58; chilepepper; ckilmer; demlosers; ...

· Catastrophism ping list · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark ·
Merely of possible interest; also, comets focussing due to an undiscovered large body is one of the planet X models.

· X-Planets ping list · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark ·

18 posted on 10/28/2006 9:42:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dhimmicrati delenda est! https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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C/2006 M4 (SWAN)
JPL Small-Body Database Browser
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?ID=dK06M040;orb=1;cov=0

Classification: Hyperbolic Comet
SPK-ID: 1002407

(hyperbolic orbits I think are diagnostic of comets which are just passing through, iow, not originating in the Solar System)


19 posted on 10/28/2006 9:45:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dhimmicrati delenda est! https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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Hyperbolic Comet:
Google

20 posted on 10/28/2006 9:47:09 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Dhimmicrati delenda est! https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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