C/2012 S1 (ison) Could Be The Brightest Comet Ever Seen By Mankind

[Polar Maritime]

We could very likely be looking at a naked eye object.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXv0y6lV0o

[Boro Snow]

google sky map app might be a useful tool to use to get the correct bit of sky to look at, just saying 

[Polarlow]

Is Ison turning Blue !

 

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=89310&PHPSESSID=pbmsceo3tujgihhvcu4uc54u25

[Boro Snow]

http://theskylive.com/ison-tracker

 

useful tool aswell

[Flipflop]

Been following Ison for awhile now and now it it has two tails, just hope its going to be more than visible to the eye and wash the sky with jaw dropping wowness.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

http://spaceweather.com/images2013/11nov13/double_strip.jpg

Edited November 12, 2013 by Raptor Raw

[Boro Snow]

could that be because its broken up though into 2 separate peices , excellent image

[Flipflop]

Its ionized gas BS, http://spaceweather.com/

 

 

One tail is the ion tail. It is a thin streamer of ionized gas pushed away from the comet by solar wind. The filamentary ion tail points almost directly away from the sun.

The other tail is the dust tail. Like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs to mark their way through the forest, ISON is leaving a trail of comet dust as it moves through the solar system. Compared to the lightweight molecules in the ion tail, grains of comet dust are heavier and harder for solar wind to push around. The dust tends to stay where it is dropped. The dust tail, therefore, traces the comet's orbit and does not point directly away from the sun as the ion tail does.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Raptor Raw

[Flipflop]

Comet ISON now appears to have 3 distinct tails as it continues to brighten.

 

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=89573

 

[Mesosphere]

Hope we get something akin to Ikeya-Seki in the 60's but i doubt it. Should still be a grand sight though, another McNaught?

Edited November 13, 2013 by Mesosphere

[Methuselah]

Hope we get something akin to Ikeya-Seki in the 60's but i doubt it. Should still be a grand sight though, another McNaught?

So long as it's not another Kahoutek!

[R.P. McMurphy]

Great news here guys, ISON is an outburst ! This could yet live up to all the hype, I can't wait.

[Mesosphere]

So long as it's not another Kahoutek!

 

 !!

 

 

Great news here guys, ISON is an outburst ! This could yet live up to all the hype, I can't wait.

 

Yup some french fella's reporting the brightness has increased by 1 Mag. If it clears here tonight i might have a go with the binoculars, along with Comet Lovejoy

 

http://www.isoncampaign.org/Present

Edited November 13, 2013 by Mesosphere

[Methuselah]

Sod it! Some tosseur has gone and erected an arc-light exactly where the Sun sets!

[skidders]

Sod it! Some tosseur has gone and erected an arc-light exactly where the Sun sets!

At the moment you can only see it just before sunrise, so that shouldn't affect you until after November when it has gone around the sun and out the other side.

[Boro Snow]

Yep its dec when we can see it at sunset no point looking now except at dawn

 

Edited November 13, 2013 by Boro Snow

[Boro Snow]

I was not aware of Comet Lovejoy so thanks for mentioning that, i was aware of the other 3 Ison Encke and Linear which are all currently able to be viewed in the Northern Hemisphere 

[Mesosphere]

Up at 5am this morning for a wee look and found Lovejoy easily in 10x42mm binoculars above the sickle of Leo. Didn't try for ISON as it was a bit low in the sky and i'm not too familiar with the constellation Virgo so probably wouldn't be able to pick it out with twilight approaching. 

 

Further obs this morning from the pro's are going for Mag 6 to 6.5 brightness for ISON. 5.5 or thereabouts for Lovejoy

 

Also interesting to note that Comet C/2013 V3 (Nevski) has brightened to Mag 8.9! Might break the Mag 8 barrier and become the 5th comet to grace our morning skies!

[Flipflop]

Comet is definitely in "outburst"! It should be naked eye visible NOW!

 

The star below has V-mag = 6.3 and the comet's V-mag = 5.1! 

 

 

 

Taken from http://www.brucegary.net/ISON/ might be worth checking here from time to time for latest updates..

 

[Mesosphere]

Comet is definitely in "outburst"! It should be naked eye visible NOW!

 

The star below has V-mag = 6.3 and the comet's V-mag = 5.1! 

 

 

 

Taken from http://www.brucegary.net/ISON/ might be worth checking here from time to time for latest updates..

 

 

"This is the early phase of the outburst as the dust is still close to the nucleus and we should still expect a large increase of the magnitude and the coma diameter if more dust is released in the coming days. 

The comet will become rapidly visible naked eye if the outburst last a few more days !"

 

 

That's from the Comets ML yahoo group. Looks like we're in for a good display if it keeps it up 

[Gray-Wolf]

As long as it keeps brightening the upcoming cold might bring us the morning skies we need to see it?  6:30 is a decent time to be getting up as well!

[weatherobsuk]

I got the equipment out, and fingers x'd for some clear skies before the morning comes. The Full Moon is likely to scupper this initial brightening phase especially onwards into the weekend, so tonight is the best bet for those in the UK wanting to see ISON and R1 especially as the waxing Moon sets a few minutes before 5am with plenty of dark-sky left before sunrise at 7.30am.

[Methuselah]

I got the equipment out[...]

I do hope it's worth it!

[weatherobsuk]

Finally managed to 'bag' Lovejoy R1 one down in the early hours of this morning. I had a go finding ISON but the clouds decided to roll in before I could orientate myself and given i'm not too familiar with the constellation Virgo i'll wait until the 17th as ISON will be near the bright star Spica making it slightly more easier to find.Anyway this is Lovejoy R1, as captured through a 15s exposure taken on a D3100. My first true attempt at astrophotographing a Comet so it's not too bad for a first-timer I think. The first of the Leonids were also visible from this morning and despite seeing around 4 bright meteors none of them ended up in the camera frame.

 

 

[Polar Maritime]

COMET ISON OUTBURST: A sudden outburst of brightness from Comet ISON has catapulted it to the threshold of naked-eye visibility. "I've been imaging Comet ISON every morning," reports amateur astronomer Charles Coburn. of Rescue, CA. "On Nov. 14th, to my surprise, I could see it on my DSLR live preview screen." These two images show the comet on consecutive days as photographed by Coburn using the same camera and telescope settings:

Reports like Coburn's are coming in from around the world. Apparently, during the early hours of Nov. 14th Comet ISON surged in brightness by a factor of approximately 6. In terms of astronomical magnitudes, it jumped from +8 to +6. If the trend continues, it could be a faint but easy naked-eye object by the end of the week.

The sudden uptick in brightness could be caused by a fresh vein of ice opening up in the comet's nucleus. Rapid vaporization of ice by solar heat is a sure-fire way to boost a comet's visibility. But, as NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign states, "we have no idea." The comet's nucleus is hidden from view by a hazy green atmosphere, so events in the interior remain a mystery.

"I have a strong suspicion that this is Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4) all over again," says Mark Kidger of the ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid. In the year 2000, Kidger other astronomers monitored Comet LINEAR as it disintegrated en route to the sun. "The sudden appearance of ISON's gas tail (discussed further below), the increasing fuzziness of its coma, and now this sudden outburst all remind me of C/1999 S4 just before it broke apart."

 

http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Buzzit]

LINEAR 1999 S4 was less than a 3rd the size of ISON, and I expect whatever ISON does will be of a much greater order of magnitude and importance.

If ISON survives perihelion intact, then I expect we will learn a lot about theoretical scientific principles throughout December and January.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Buzzit