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What latitude would suit observers? McNaught was very much for our Southern Hemisphere friends.

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I took a quick look at the open front page of your favorite comet forum, Gladstoner, and seemed to see several people congratulating an Anatoli Nevski for the discovery. Will this be Comet Nevski, then?

Got to be a good connection to be made to Alexander Nevski, somehow, if so. "Oh, noble yeoman, thy tail shineth so bright..."

-the other Doug

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Ok... STARRY NIGHT is now updating with the orbital elements for the comet, so here are some screengrabs. Use these as a guide to WHERE it will be, and what will be around it. Do NOT take these tail lengths as accurate. Sky rendered for my viewing location in Kendal, Cumbria, UK. Your local viewing circumstances will differ, but if you live in the north this will give you a rough guide...

Basically, pray for a clear sky where you live on Nov 29th...!!!

November 16th before dawn...

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November 22nd before dawn...

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November 28th before dawn... (McNaught-like tail fan visible before dawn?)

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Nov 29th before sunset...

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Nov 29th after sunset...

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December 2nd after sunset...

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Christmas Eve after sunset...

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Discuss ;-)

Definitely a time of year where Seattle has tons of clear weather.

So far...

This comet makes a very close approach to Mars around October 2nd, 2013, about 0.07 AU. It has the potential for some great photos from MSL or Opportunity! JPL's HORIZONS is predicting a visual magnitude of 2 as seen from Mars at closest approach.

That would be an amazing first! Let's hope for clear skies on two planets!

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I would guess that Oppy would have little chance for observing ISON as we would be well on our way toward winter solstice. Curiosity would have a better chance I'd expect? (Assuming reality roughly follows hopes and expectations of course.)

Would a pair of observations of ISON (any comet really) from a known location on mars be notably more enlightening regarding the comet (orbit or visual attributes) than 'ordinary' observations from earth?

-- Pertinax

I think observing from two planets would add information, especially on 3D tail structure. Maybe someone will make an interplanetary anaglyph.

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So it's another Kreutz?

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Aha then it could be nearly as great as comet Hyakutake then, amazing to have the potential chance to see two really great comets in a lifetime.

The recent run of Great Comets has been incredible, after the long drought of well-known bright comets before them. What bright comets there were, were almost unknown to the general public. I blame the Kohoutek disappointment for the lack of media attention. I did not find out about comet West, for example, until it was long gone.

Comets Hyakutake (1996), Hale-Bopp (1997), McNaught (2007), Lovejoy (2011), and next year's PANSTARRS and ISON constitute up to six Great Comets in eighteen years (and four in seven years), if the two 2013 comets perform up to (possibly inflated) expectations. This surely is a remarkably prolific time for Great Comets.

Nice to be lucky, isn't it?

These upcoming events present unique, engaging opportunities for outreach for those of us inclined & able to do so. In particular, there will be a great many young people fascinated by the spectacle(s) should they come to pass.

For me, Ikeya-Seki was the first contemporary comet of which I was aware (I was 9 years old at the time), and for us in the northern hemisphere, I recall it to be an unviewable bust. I never did see it with my own eyes.

The very first comet I recall seeing was Comet Bennet in 1970. By that time I had a small reflector telescope, and I recall setting it up in the back yard on a cold March or April morning at like 3am and looking at the coma and streaming tail through my little 'scope. Didn't look like much, just a fuzzy patch with no definition near the core, but with my naked eye I could see the tail covering about 30 degrees of the sky. Faint, but rather impressive.

Kohoutek was a bust as well, never even spotted a fuzzy patch in the sky. Hyakutake was the next comet I saw, and I never saw a lot of a tail from it, just an elongated fuzzy patch in the sky. Really not that impressive.

Hale-Bopp was very impressive to me, the near-in tail was very bright and the comet was very clearly visible in the daylight sky. I flew to England while Hale-Bopp was in the northern sky, and I recall out my window seeing the tails (H-B had that cool spiked double tail) rising out of the pale green glow of the aurora borealis as we sped along from the U.S. to England along the great circle route.

I never saw anything but pictures of McNaught, though I understand it was impressive to those in the southern hemisphere.

I'm really hoping that ISON will out-perform Hale-Bopp. All we can do, I suppose is wait. And watch the skies!



-the other Doug

Want to know where to look for Comet ISON in late 2013..?

Here ya go...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/

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But… What do we got there ??

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The November 29th view is something i've dreamed of seeing since I learned that such things were possible -- we'll see what happens.

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I was in the wilds of southern Utah in March and April of 1996 and was looking forward to Hale-Bopp. Never even heard of Hyakutake. So when one of my fellow backpackers woke me up in the middle of the night of March 24-25 and told me there is a huge comet like thing in the sky I didn't bother to go out and look. When she told me it was actually moving against the stars I told told her that she must have been drinking too much "mormon tea" - lol. When she eventually dragged me out I was stunned. Nothing I've ever seen in the sky comes close to the majestic views of that night. Indeed,it moved noticeably in only an hour or so. Hale-Bopp was upstaged - big time.

Are you kidding? You could actually see the thing moving against background stars.

I know that sounds incredible and I had the same reaction as you

But it was only about 0.1au from earth and in a near hyperbolic orbit traveling at near hyperbolic speeds.

I was lucky enough to enjoy some really good views of Hyakutake from here in Cumbria, but the best was from way out in the middle of the Cumbrian fells, standing in the gravel path of a farm field in the shadow of one of the mountains. Pitch black. Not a breath of wind. Silent but for the bleating of sheep, and the distant thrumm of a passing car miles away - and totally cloudy.
We'd driven out there after a forecast of clear weather, but when we arrived the sky was still totally overcast, but it was so far out in the countryside we decided to hang around a while rather than turn back. Eventually a small clear patch appeared, stars twinkling like diamonds within it. Then the gap just ripped open, like stretched cloth, and there was the tail of Hyakutake, painted across the sky like a WW2 anti aircraft searchlight. At first we refused to believe that was "it", the tail, but then the head appeared at the end and there was no other explanation.

Three hours we stood there, gazing at that tail. It was ridiculously beautiful, like a single auroral ray lancing across the sky.

Comet ISON? Bring it on.

It would be amazing to see something like the great comet of 1680.

The differing recollections of Hyakutake are great illustration of the impact of light pollution. It was for me my first great comet, having only seen (the disappointing) Austin (http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994JALPO..37..171M) a handful of years before. (Never got a successful look at Halleys.) The impact of light pollution was vividly illustrated as we drove out of State College, PA where Hyakutake was visible only as a 'fuzzy star' to gradually emerge into being a nearly indescribable green beam across the sky in the dark skies of central PA ~15-30 min out. My friends who lever left campus didn't understand why people were so excited about the comet as it was "only a fuzzy star". Those who trekked out to dark skies enjoyed a view that would remain with them for life.

I hope ISON, or even PANSTARS, will be such an experience for others (and for myself as well ).


-- Pertinax

From the surface, perhaps. Though recall that Halley was observed by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter..

Don't forget that 2013 will be The Year of the CometS, with another naked eye comet due to decorate the northern sky after sunset in March and April. Comet PANSTARRS runs the risk of being relegated to "warm up act" for ISON, but it might still be very impressive. Finder charts here...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/comet-panstarrs

It's always somewhere in my mind that things may be 'overhyped' when I see newspaper headlines like some of those I've seen recently. No one knows what ISON is going to do - there's a good chance (unusually good even) that it may become a really great comet but it could just as well fizzle out.

Regarding Hyakutake and the preceding discussion - it is definitely the most spectacular comet I've ever seen. What sets it apart is that it was so big in the sky, much bigger than all of the other comets I've seen.

Absolutely. Which is why I go to great pains on the blog to point out that we just don't know what will happen with either comet, and people should calm down a little.

(I'm actually getting criticised by some people for playing down the prospects for the comets, would you believe. Can't win! )

I remember an unimpressive fuzzy blob, too, from a location with pretty mediocre viewing conditions.

I think Halley had predisposed me to expect little, and seeing little, assume that was it.

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I plan to be deep in the Mojave Desert with my Celestron NexStar 8 & a set of wide-field eyepieces during the optimal dates.

Probably little new here for UMSF comet fans, but interesting nevertheless, including comparison with 1680: http://www.nightskyhunter.com/Sky%20Events%20Now.html

(edit - scroll down for the relevant posts.)

The comet ISON were first discovered by Russian astronomers working as part of the International Scientific Optical Network.
The projected path of comet ISON are quite similar to the great comet of 1680, so there's some speculation it might share a common origin.
If the comet it survives the passage of the Sun without breaking up it might become the brightest comet for a long time. (Though most on this forum also know to take such a statement with quite some grains of salt since a number of comets have turned out to be quite less dramatic than the early predictions.) The best opportunities to watch this comet will eventually be between October 2013 to January 2014.

Reuters story on ISON

How, when and where all here on my blog...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/

Very well written, and several ones I noted now thank you for the heads up. =)
(And yes I thought Hyakutake spanning quite a bit of the sky would be the comet of my lifetime also. Happy 2013!)

((And thank you for the good merger. Me bad, I guess I have to make a contribution to the swear bucket - it must be a bucket and not just a jar by now right.- for my unability to find the thread already in place.))

Here's my ephemeris that includes tail and visibility info as seen from 40N for ISON:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/ast/eph/ISON.2012S1.co.html

Steve

PANSTAARS should be getting just far enough in elongation from the sun to be seen at about 10 degrees altitude in a dark sky from the southern hemisphere. Any recent magnitude estimates?

Thanks - this is running about a magnitude fainter than my earlier ephermis so I've updated it at the link below with Jakob Cerny's light curve, peaking at +1.0 magnitude:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/ast/eph/PANSTARRS.2011L4.co.html

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/comets-ml/message/20415

By the way I added a new limiting magnitude/visibility entry in these ephemerides (rightmost columns) to help gauge the comet's appearance. This should help interpret how easy the comet will be to see as it brightens in the varying sky viewing conditions. The result is that PANSTARRS should have borderline naked eye visibility (both at 40N latitude and around the equator).