A Bright Comet Is Coming
Pastor Dale Morgan
Posted on: Wednesday, 10 January 2007, 15:15 CST
*A Bright Comet Is Coming*
If you watch the morning or evening sky these days and have a clear view
of the horizon, you will be able to spot a bright object with a
prominent tail.
Instructions for viewing the comet in the morning from Spaceweather.com:
At dawn, go outside and face east
Using binoculars, scan the horizon
The comet is located just south of due east
Instructions for viewing the comet in the evening from Spaceweather.com:
At sunset, go outside and face west
Using binoculars, scan the horizon
The comet is located low and to the right of Venus
A clear view of the horizon is essential
That object is comet C/2006 P1 (Comet McNaught). It was discovered on
August 7th, 2006 by the hugely successful comet discoverer Rob McNaught.
At time of discovery, the comet was a very faint object, but the
predicted perihelion distance (closest distance to the sun) of just 0.17
astronomical units (the average distance between the Earth and sun,
about 150 million kilometers) indicated that the object has the
potential to become very bright indeed.
Nobody really knows just what this comet will look like at its closest
point to the sun and that is where SOHO comes in! The LASCO instrument
aboard SOHO has the ability to watch comets as they get extremely close
to the sun.
Fortunately for us, C/2006 P1 is going to pass right through the LASCO
C3 field of view in less than a weeks' time! As soon as SOHO's cameras
capture the comet, we will post images and further information to the
SOHO website. In the meantime, you may enjoy looking at some photographs
and checking out the links below for further information.
The image to the left shows the expected track of the comet through
SOHO's coronagraph LASCO C3. The comet will appear in the field of view
of C3 at around 10:00 UT (05:00 EDT) on January 12th (a few hours before
perihelion) in the upper-left of the images and travel almost vertically
down, exiting C3's field of view in the lower left at roughly 03:00 UT
on January 16th.
Comet McNaught skymap
Recent estimates of the comet's maximal brightness have ranged widely
from magnitude +2.1 (about as bright as Polaris, the North Star) to a
super-bright -8.8 (about 40 times brighter than Venus)! The lower the
magnitude number, the brighter the object. The brightest stars in the
sky are categorized as zero or first magnitude. Negative magnitudes are
reserved for the most brilliant objects: the brightest star is Sirius
(-1.4); the full Moon is -12.7; the Sun is -26.7.
Current estimates put comet McNaught at magnitude 0 to -1, and it is
still brightening. It could be -2 or -3 by the time it reaches LASCO's
field of view. This means it will be brighter than comet NEAT or comet
96P/Machholz. In other words, this could be the brightest and most
spectacular comet that SOHO has ever seen!
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On the Net:
NASA
SOHO
Source: NASA/Roger Johansen image