On to #8 on #ianstop102023 Let's go back to the night of 11th February when the beautiful green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was really close to the planet Mars in the sky. The contrast in colour was beautiful! #astronomy#NewZealand#comet#Mars
#Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is currently undergoing its third major outburst this cycle. I observed it at 2023-11-17.7 and RGB-image shows a faint but relatively long 10' and wide blue tail indicating CO+ ions, as well as a strong green 6' halo around the comet's optocenter, indicating C2 molecules.
An interesting curved jet structure stands out in the enlarged black and white image of the core.
The comet has just recently passed closest to Earth, so its apparent motion is near maximum.
This is a stack of almost 70 images, each exposure being 30 seconds.
The comet is crossing the milky way in Aquila (so many star trails!), and I'm impressed that the stacking software always determined an accurate centroid on the comet's nucleus. Even when the comet passed next to a star, the software tracked the comet's location quite well.
The faint tail extends up and to the left from the nucleus.
A faint tail extends to the right and slightly upward from the coma.
(2nd photo) Even though I live under a fairly dark sky, this is the raw image stack before color correction is applied.
Why an orange sky? Light pollution.
Even when I remove that orange cast to make the sky background a neutral gray, this comet is still only about 20 degrees above the horizon, so I'm looking through about 3 atmospheres. This absorbs more blue than red.
I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to get decent color in the final image, and am not entirely satisfied with the results.
April 8, 2024: Total solar eclipse. Most of North America will see at least a partial solar eclipse.
October 2024: Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), which is promising to be bright spectacular comet with apparent magnitude below 0 (lower is brighter). Closest approach to earth is on Oct 12.
Did you guys also know that #comets aren't special and aren't traveling any faster than any other #asteroid or other object out there, and they're not hot or on fire?
They're actually ice #balls, and the #sun makes the ice evaporate and then the solar wind (particles from the sun) blows that "atmosphere" away from the sun, creating the tail.
The tail doesn't even have anything to do with the direction that the ice ball is moving! The tail blows away from the sun. That's it.
A comet is literally a solar windsock.
Why did they never teach us this in school? Why did they allow us to think that comets were special fireballs moving at the speed of light across the galaxy?
Anyway, tonight and tomorrow night is the #Orionid Meteor Shower, which apparently is made up of debris from #Halley's #Comet. That's what got me on this topic.
There's a comet inbound that might put on a big show next October. One model is predicting that it could be brighter than Hale-Bopp was! That'll be something to look forward to. Here's hoping.
Pica Glass is an #impactite (impact glass) that is found in #Chile's Atacama Desert.
It is the result of a Pleistocene-era cometary airburst explosion. Like a much older #Tunguska that happened approx. 14,000 years ago and may have been witnessed by primitive humans.
This slaggy material is mostly glassy melt with inclusions that are a mix of the original #comet and terrestrial rock from the target zone.
Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival.
Of all the objects in the Solar System, perhaps the most spectacular are the great comets that occasionally grace our skies. If you’ve been on social media in the past few days, you’ve probably seen articles proclaiming we have such a comet in our skies right now: C/2023 P1 (Nishimura).
Cosmic Impact 12,800 Years Ago Forced Hunter-Gatherers In The Levant To Adopt Agricultural Practices (www.ancientpages.com)
Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival.
A Spectacular Rare Green Comet Lighting Up the Sky? An Expert on What To Expect From Nishimura (scitechdaily.com)
Of all the objects in the Solar System, perhaps the most spectacular are the great comets that occasionally grace our skies. If you’ve been on social media in the past few days, you’ve probably seen articles proclaiming we have such a comet in our skies right now: C/2023 P1 (Nishimura).