Starship Asterisk*

The APOD 4/26 about the disintegration of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 mentions possible meteor showers.

I envision the Very Large Telescope at ESO in Chile will be keeping a close eye on this, and astronomers around the world wanting the latest information and studying it around the clock.

How do astronomers communicate real-time events like this to each other? IM, a forum, Skype? Is there a way to "listen in"?

Here's hoping for a meteor shower in May

Here's hoping for a meteor shower in May

SECONDED!!!

I know the PLANET microlensing group use this crazy thing called the telephone but the logging of data and mid to long term planning is all online

i guess that since the group is relatively small (5 observatories, maybe?) they can get away with just ringing each other up

l3p3r wrote:I know the PLANET microlensing group use this crazy thing called the telephone ...

Hi I3p3r,

I really enjoyed learning about PLANET. It looks like you get alerts by email and then the phone starts ringing

I found the Daily Planet electronic hotline for on-going PLANET observations, which I'll watch.
http://planet.iap.fr/dailyplanet.html

Thanks!

For those that don't know, PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) is a worldwide collaboration of astronomers with access to Dutch, South African, and Australian telescopes. http://planet.iap.fr/ They can discover planets http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/news/planet/ and even dark matter.

There are some great movies of the breakup on the hubble website.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsde ... s/2006/18/

Here is a great map of where to look when to see the comet.
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/ima ... +latitudes.

Hello All

Thanks for the links,,,,,,,,,,,,I collect them,,,,,smile.

They are great.

I have a large collection of comets

reminds me of the comet from the chronicles of riddick

No May meteor showers, and APOD was correct to call them unlikely.

per NASA "The comet has broken into more than 40 fragments. Any pieces resulting from the breakup of its main body will come no closer than 5.5 million miles to Earth".

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=19706

The Hubble movies are great.

oops ... sorry for the spam in my post about slooh. I should have spent more time learning about it before bringing it to the forum

SW3 will make an appearance on the slooh.com site, but after checking it out I find it is a pretty commercial site.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060418/nytu067.html?.v=47

Concerning the possibility of a meteor shower OR meteor storm during C 73P's closest approach.

I regularly take my 4" Schmidt Cassegrain scope 'up the mountain' to a nearby observation point at approx. 1,500'. I live on the coast, about 75 miles North of San Francisco. I have been making regular trips to my viewing location to watch C 73P's breakup. This is the 34th comet I've observed.

LAST WEEK, after finding fragments 'C' and 'G', I sat on the bed of my truck to take a break. My telescope was pointing toward the comet. I saw a very bright meteor streak past... its flight path was aligned with my telescope! Later that night, I saw 2 more meteors on or near the same flight path, aligned with my telescope, pointing toward C 73P.

It is unusual to see 3 meteors near the same flight path, except during a meteor shower with a known radiant. OR, unless they are 'entrained'.. whcih indicates that the meteoric pieces probably came from the same parent body. Entrained meteors GENERALLY are seen quite close to each other.. though not always.

ALSO, I must note that the given ephemeries I used to find the comet were slightly 'off'. That is to say, these fast moving fragments have been a bit difficult to pin down exactly, due to outgassing and continuing fragmentation, causing orbital uncertainties. Therefore it is quite possible that there WILL be an accompanying meteor shower when 73P passes. IN FACT, there are already particles intersecting Earth's orbit...

Just go out and take a look for yourself! AS it rings true, that 'He or she who goes there... knows there!'

^ excellent news thankyou!

I'm hoping to catch this comet as it passes us by, but I don't even know if I'll be able to see it from where I am, let alone where to point my telescope. can anyone give me some hints ? =)

lp3pr
Take a look at my last post in this thread. About 5 up or so. It doesn't contain information like declination and assention but it gives a good visual approximate location.

Looking foreward to viewing other posts here that might give better pinpoint directions for telescopic aiming.

Looks like the S. Hemisphere's best shot is late May... 11PM EST tonight, May 7th, the comet passes within a couple arc minutes of M57 in Lyra... Is that visable from your location 13p3r?

Twilight's are over here 9ish... BIG MOON washes out lots... setting up one's scope in a shadow can help a bit.

thanks BMAONE23, do you know if there is a southern hemisphere version ? from that picture I would *expect* to have to look very northwards to see it

hi aqua, thanks for the tip, I dont know if I can see M57 from here I'll have to ask some friends who know what they're doing

Hello All

I'm in Sydney the land of ozzzzzzzzzz.

Where do i look for the comet?

I set up my 4" telescope in the driveway out front last night. Lyra cleared the trees around 11PM. I found Fragments G and C easily, and Fragment B with averted vision.

Fragment G was the brightest of the 3, due north of Pi Hercules, while Frag. C showed more motion as there were 4 stars in the field of view and close by, where as G was pretty much alone.

With a 25mm Plossel, I saw M57 and Frag. C in the same field of view! (Closest approach was 3 hours earlier and in twilight)

With a 9mm Plossel details in Frag. G were lost, but Frag. C's coma was apparent.

As Frag. C rose higher it showed a very cometary looking tail, while Frag. G appeared more as a simple elongated blob.

Unfortunately I know of no southern hemisphere view of this portion of the sky that is available in this format. This site might help though.

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/sk ... ychart.asp

they can give you a view of your sky that might assist you in finding the track to the north of your view

hey harry,
we should be able to see it to the East (directly east for us in hobart, a little south of east for you, i think) at about midnight friday and saturday night ~ 20 deg above horizon

it will be reasonably faint. Just visible with your eyes, recommend binoculars

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natu ... 97.stm#map

Here is another map of where to look

Hello All

Here in Sydney the land of ozzzzzzzzzzz invites the world to come on down and see the comet.

Some of you who like a cold one can have as much as you can hold.

Harry,
Did you travel to Ayres rock a few years back to see the comet trio? I recall the news about there being three different comets visible in the southern sky a few years ago. I know that Ayres is a bit of a distance from Sydney but it could have been worth it to see three different comets in the sky over the top of this mystical rock.

Hello BMAONE23

Sorry to say, no
I could not make it.

The name Ayres Rock has been changed to the original name by the aborigines to Uluru. I hope spelled it right.

I'll bear that in mind the next time I need to refer to it. Uluru

Thanks