We all have seen brilliant photos of Comet McNaught in First week of Jan. I am really depressed not to see this comet visually. all our attempts to watch comet were unsuccessful due to Hazy and Cloudy Sky in evening, And Now as comet is not visible in Northern Part of Glob; I am depressed even more for being not able to see this comet in it’s full glory..
I hope you too will join list of depressed Amature Astronomers after you see these images of Comet from Southern Hemisphere.
= Click on Images to view in Full Size ===
Robert McNaught:
the Australian who discovered this comet that bears his name, finally got to photograph it this week when it became visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
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Pitt: This photograph was taken at Lake Macquarie on the NSW central coast on Saturday, 20th January using a NIKON 5700. The exposure was 8 seconds, f2.8 set at ISO 400 and with a focal length of 8.9 mm. On a balmy summer evening many interested people stopped to view the cosmic spectacle.
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Peter Terren:
Bunbury AustraliaJan. 22, 2007
The huge fan is visible far more than the naked eye can see in this 3 minute exposure with a Nikon D70s.
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Ashley Marles:
Christchurch, New ZealandJan. 22, 2007
Photo details: Canon 20D, ISO400, lens 24mm, 35mm, and 200mm piggybacked on Celestron C8
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Noel Munford:
Levin, New Zealand overlooking Lake HorowhenuaJan. 17, 2007
Photo details: Fuji S3, 70-200 zoom lens, Meade 1000mm f/10, 800 ISO, 2 sec.
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Graham Palmer:
Hastings New ZealandJan. 18, 2007Comet McNaught simply floored me with its beauty. I just didn't expect to see that. All images shot with a Canon 350D
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Sam Kay:
near Peaks Crossing, SW of Brisbane, AustraliaJan. 20, 2007 : = Red glow on horizon of setting comet tail.
Photo details: Nikon D50, 20sec, f1.8 50mm lens, ISO 1600. Image is about 20 deg wide.
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David Headland:
Oamaru, South Island, New ZealandJan. 22, 2007
Photo details: Canon EOS 20D, 70mm lens,
photo 1: 25s f/2.8 3200ISO
photo 2: 6s f/2.8 1600ISO
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Morton Henderson:
Wangi Wangi, Lake Macquarie, NSW Australia.Jan. 20, 2007
The tail is so big now, it's too big to fit in the field of view, and I left my wide angle at home!
Photo details: Canon EOS 10D, ISO 400, 70mm lens, approx 10 seconds.
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Emmanuel Jehin:
Paranal Observatory (VLT), Chile (2500m, Atacama desert)Jan. 18, 2007
A comet or an aurora ? That was just incredible ... the show of MacNaught is way above the Hale-Bopp display in 1997. I dont know to which comet to compare. Ikeya-Seki (1965), West (1976) or even the great comet of 1744 ? During nearly one hour after the comet had disappeared in the Pacific Ocean we could see the upper part of the tail shining like an aurora. The structure in the tail is amazing and reflects the activity of the comet in the past weeks as well as the competion between solar radiation pressure and gravity on dust particules of different masses.
Photo details: Canon EOS 350D, 35mm lens, 30 sec exposure, 1600 iso
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NOTE: While the comet is in the southern hemisphere, the comet's tail is so long it can be seen half a world away--in the northern hemisphere.
This report comes from Colorado:
Paul Robinson reported spotting the tail on Jan 16 west of Boulder CO. As he described, the multiple streamers looked like faint auroral rays. 10 degrees was the maximum length I saw for the brightest streamer in 10x40 binoculars. Brightest star in the image is Enif, and Delphinus is near the lower right.
Photo details: Canon 20D, ISO 1600, f/4, 17mm lens, 20 seconds. Taken at 0038 UT on Jan 18 2007, 1838 MST on Jan 17.
The tail was visible in binoculars about when Venus set.
Suggestion: Find the darkest western sky you can, and look at latest by an hour after sunset. A site with zodiacal light visible would be best. Cheers, Dan Laszlo, Northern Colorado Astronomical Society.
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HOPE you are depressed too :(
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I am really depressed ...
Friday, January 12, 2007
8 New Satellites for the Milky Way..
With the prospect of finding dozens of new dwarf systems in our Local Group of galaxies, an international team of researchers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) has moved the count ahead with the discovery of seven - and perhaps eight - new satellites of the Milky Way.
"Cold dark matter models predict that there should be tens to hundreds more dwarf galaxies in the Local Group than have been observed, if all dark matter halos are lit up with stars," explains Dan Zucker, a member of the team from Cambridge University. "In less than a year, we have used SDSS-II data to find seven new Milky Way dwarf satellites. We've just discovered an eighth new dwarf, but we're not sure this one is a Milky Way satellite."
"We've found almost as many new Milky Way satellites as were detected in the previous 70 years," says Zucker's co-investigator Vasily Belokurov, also of Cambridge.
The discovery of "A New Population of Ultra-faint Local Group Galaxies" was announced today at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Seattle.
Dwarf galaxies contain, at most, a few million stars and they often orbit around much larger galaxies such as the Milky Way. In its simplest form, the leading theory of galaxy formation predicts that the Milky Way should have a hundred or more surrounding dwarfs, but only a handful were known before SDSS-II.
The new dwarfs have some unusual properties. "They're more like hobbits than dwarfs," comments Belokurov, since they are smaller and fainter than most previously known satellites. Several of the newly discovered systems appear to be on the verge of disruption -- probably by the tidal gravity of the Milky Way -- and the 'Ursa Major II' dwarf seems to already be in several pieces. "They look as though they're being ground up," notes Belokurov.
Current theories of galaxy assembly suggest that many, perhaps all, of the stars in the halo and thick disk of the Milky Way originated in smaller dwarf galaxies, which were dissolved when they merged into the Milky Way itself.
"The new dwarfs are really just the crumbs from the galactic feast," says Zucker. "Most of the merging happened early on -- billions of years ago -- and what we're seeing here are the leftovers."
The SDSS-II is a unique resource for finding Milky Way satellites because its deep, multi-color imaging allows detection of much fainter systems than were previously visible. The new objects are found using sophisticated computer algorithms that troll the digital data to find groupings of related stars. "But the SDSS-II covers only a fifth of the sky," notes Cambridge co-investigator Wyn Evans, "so there must be many more dwarfs out there."
CREDIT: Vasily Belokurov, SDSS-II Collaboration
The seven new Milky Way satellites all lie in the area of sky around the North Galactic Pole surveyed by the SDSS-II. There are two new dwarfs in the constellation of Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), one in Bootes (the Herdsman), one in Leo (the Lion), one in Coma Berenices (Bernice's Hair), one in Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and one in Hercules.
The eighth and newest discovery may be the most intriguing. Named Leo T, it is about 1.4 million light years away, on the fringes of the Milky Way's gravitational influence.
"It may be a 'free-floating' Local Group dwarf, rather than a satellite of the Milky Way," notes team member Sergey Koposov, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. In addition to its greater distance, Leo T is distinct from the previous seven discoveries in that it has both populations of fairly old stars (greater than five billion years old) and comparatively young populations (less that one billion years old). It also appears to have neutral hydrogen gas, so its star-forming days may not be over.
CREDIT: Mike Irwin, the SDSS-II Collaboration
Leo T could be the bellwether of a large population of faint galaxies that reside in the Local Group but are not closely associated with either the Milky Way or the Andromeda galaxy. Because it's too distant to be strongly influenced by the Milky Way's tides, Leo T's low luminosity (the equivalent of roughly 50,000 Suns) is likely intrinsic, not a consequence of tidal stripping of loosely bound stars.
"Leo T has probably always been very faint, retaining its gas and slowly forming stars in relative isolation," comments Mike Irwin, a discovery team member and Cambridge University astronomer.
In combination with previously discovered systems from the SDSS-II and other sky surveys, the large number of new dwarfs changes the complexion of the cold dark matter theory's "missing satellite" problem. "These discoveries bring the data and the theory closer together," comments Zucker, though there may still be a gap between them.
Other members of the SDSS-II discovery team include Mark Wilkinson, Mike Fellhauer, and Gerry Gilmore of Cambridge University, and Jelte De Jong and Hans-Walter Rix of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
The new finds are part of SEGUE (the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration), one of three surveys comprising SDSS-II. "The results from SDSS-I showed us that there was a great potential for finding new dwarf galaxies and the stars that have been ripped away from them by the Milky Way's gravity. They were one of the major reasons we undertook SEGUE," explains SEGUE founder Heidi Jo Newberg of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "SDSS-II is likely to turn up more of these dwarf galaxies by the time it is done."
From : SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY http://www.sdss.org/
ABOUT THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (SDSS-II)
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (www.sdss.org) is the most ambitious survey of the sky ever undertaken. With more than 300 astronomers and engineers in 25 institutions around the world, the SDSS-II is continuing to map one quarter of the entire sky, determining the position and brightness of hundreds of millions of celestial objects, including the measurement of distances to more than a million galaxies and quasars from the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. In addition, the SEGUE (Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration) will undertake the mapping of the structure and stellar makeup of the Milky Way Galaxy. The new Supernova Survey will repeatedly scan a 300 square degree area to detect and measure supernovae and other variable objects.
Funding for SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society.
The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, Cambridge University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Comet McNaught - Shining Bright.....
By: Patrick Boomer,
Location: Southwest of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Date: Jan. 7, 2007
Photographer Note: This is a side-by-side from Jan. 6th and Jan. 7th showing the difference a day makes. Both photos were taken at 5:36pm local time.
Photo details: Canon 350D, 300mm lens, f10, ISO 200, 1s exposure
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By: Haakon Dahle,
Location: Fjellhamar, Norway
Date: Jan. 5, 2007
Photographer Note:The picture was taken 06h40m UT, shortly after the comet rose above the local horizon. The comet was then 3 degrees above (and the sun 10 degrees below) the true horizon. The comet was visible to the naked eye, and the tail was a beautiful sight in binoculars.
Photo details: Nikon D70, 300mm f/5.6 lens, 800 ASA, 1s exp
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By: Gabor Szendroi,
Location: Kormend, Hungary
Date: Jan. 7, 2007
Photo details: Canon EOS 300D, Zeiss sonnar 4/300, ISO 200, 2s exp
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By: Thorsten Boeckel,
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Date: Jan. 7, 2007
Photographer Note: The comet was clear and bright to see with the naked eye as the sun set at 16:20 UTC.
Photo details: Canon 20D, 100 mm lens, ASA 100, 1sec
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Friday, January 5, 2007
New Brilliant Comet for New Year
New Year 2007 started with great expectation among Astronomers. Astronomers world wide are looking forward to watch new comet discovered by Australian astronomer Robert McNaught in last Aug. At the time of discovery comet was very faint just 17 magnitude. But once orbit of comet is computed it is clear that it may grow very bright. Comet McNaught officially catalogued as C/2006 P1.
Photo taken on Dec 30, 2006
Comet McNaught's orbit indicates that it will sweep to within just 15.8 million miles (25.4 million kilometers) of the Sun on Jan. 12. This rather close approach—less than half the average distance of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.
This means the comet has the potential to briefly evolve into a very bright object. The big question is, just how bright?
Brighter than Venus?
Recent estimates have ranged widely from magnitude +2.1 (about as bright as Polaris, the North Star) to a dazzling -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. The faintest stars visible under dark skies are around +6.]
The reason for the great uncertainty due to the fact that for the past few weeks the comet has been positioned at such a relatively small angular distance from the Sun in the sky that it has been extremely difficult to get good measurements of its brightness.
Now, with a little over a week to go before the comet makes its closest approach to the Sun (called perihelion), just how bright it may ultimately get and how long a tail may develop remain to be seen.
What Observers Saw so far…
Observers have followed its gradual brightening as its distances from Sun and Earth decreased. It's currently both a morning and evening object, visible very low near the east-southeast horizon about 30 to 40 minutes before sunrise and very low near the west-southwest horizon about 30 to 40 minutes after sunset.
During this upcoming week, prospective observers should seek the most favorable conditions possible. Even a bright comet can be obliterated by thin horizon clouds, haze, humid air, smoke, twilight glow, city lights, or moonlight. Binoculars are strongly recommended for locating it.
But the past few days, reports suggest that Comet McNaught is becoming easier to sight even through the bright twilight glow.
David Moore reported seeing the comet on New Year's Day evening from Dublin, Ireland. He writes: "After searching for over half an hour in strong twilight I saw it easily in 20x80 binoculars from an upstairs window. I could see a small fuzzy and surprisingly bright head about as bright as the mag 3.5 star Lambda Aquilae 6 degrees above it. That said, it was not an easy observation given the strong twilight and the comet was only 3.0 degrees above the horizon!"
Well-known comet observer, John Bortle of Stormville, New York caught sight of the comet just before sunrise with 15 x 80 binoculars on Jan. 2.
He says "My eastern view was largely obstructed by trees; Still it was somewhat amazing to see the comet against such a bright sky and through all those tree branches! From experience in making similar observations, I'd judge that it was not any fainter than 2nd magnitude."
Regardless of just how bright Comet McNaught becomes, beginning on Friday, Jan. 12 and continuing through Monday, Jan. 15, it will be passing through the field of view of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ("SOHO"); a spacecraft that was launched in 1995 to study the Sun.
Astronomers hope to get spectacular views of the comet by utilizing SOHO's LASCO C3 camera.
My own experience is you can catch comet in twilight, I have seen Comet Linear (when Comet Neat was Super Hit in Sky Theater) just after sun-set from Raigad with 10X50 binocular, it was +1 mag then and visible as fuzzy patch in bright sky through binocular.
Let’s hope this comet will be spectacular Show in Next Week. If it withstands expectations then it can be brighter than Hale-Bopp..
So don’t miss the opportunity. And write back if you can see it.
Path of Comet :- Just know that Sun is in Constellation Sagittarius.
