Saturday Lecture Series: Incoming Comet PanSTARRS.
Good morning, all. Clean off you optics and ready your lawn chairs, we have an inbound comet. Stay tuned for updates form the Coldwarrior Observatory (it’ll probably be cloudy). This comet has potential as this is the first time it has been out of its milyo of the Oort cloud. Do read on:
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From our friends at http://www.spaceweather.com/:
INCOMING COMET: In little more than a month, Comet PanSTARRS will cross the orbit of Mercury and probably brighten to naked-eye visibility as it absorbs the heat of the nearby sun. Sky watchers around the world will be looking for it in the sunset skies of early March, when it passes closest to the sun and to Earth. Until then a telescope is required; here is the view last night through a 0.3-meter-diameter reflector in Argentina:
A team of astronomers led by Martin Masek took the picture using the remotely-controlled F(/Ph)otometric Robotic Atmospheric Monitor–”FRAM” for short. “The stars are trailed in this 9x120s exposure, which tracked the comet,” explains Masel.
Currently, the comet ranks about 8th magnitude, dimmer than the human eye can see, but it could brighten 100-fold on March 10th when it makes its closest approach to the sun (0.3 AU). The latest curves suggest that PanSTARRS will emerge glowing about as brightly as a 3rd magnitude star, similar to the stars in the Big Dipper.
There might, however, be surprises in store. Comet PanSTARRS has never been to inner solar system before. It is falling in from the Oort cloud, a great swarm of comets beyond Neptune and Pluto unaltered by the warmth of the sun. When Comet PanSTARRS dips it toe inside the orbit of Mercury for the first time, almost anything could happen ranging from an anticlimatic “bake-out” to a spectacular disruption. Stay tuned for updates. [3D Orbit]
I’m always asleep when this stuff happens…
@ Mike C.:
Blog dropping for you at bottom of John Gault thread.
I would stay up if sky stuff looked like this:
@ unclassifiable:
Read that Memet piece early this morning. Can’t see the Coneheads clip for some reason (stupid 3rd World connections.)
Aside from that, WTF is everybody, out at the range? And if so, where did they get the ammo to do that?
ALL unattended threads become gun threads…
@ Mike C.:
BTW, I think I is me… OTOH, it’s a probabilistic universe, so one can never be 100 % certain…
@ Mike C.:
But in NY, they’re limited to 7 comments.
@ lobo91:
Heh.
“You don’t need 10 comments to talk to a deer!”
@ Mike C.:
Clip linky (for cut and paste in browser address bar for utoob):
Enjoy!
@ Mike C.:
I am at work:(
I will be looking in intermittently.
The Fox News Channel has not renewed Sarah Palins’ contract
and has signed Dennis Kucinich as regular contributor.
Hmmmmm
European cap-and-trade market takes a nose dive.
Carbon analyst Alphonse Gore was concerned that the current carbon panic could negatively impact pixie dust futures.
@ Mike C.:
Darn it anyway!
Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXkFgmQ2O-Q
Along with promoting my new pamplet — “How to Screw Up Funny”.
@ unclassifiable:
All you have to do to embed that video here (for YouTube that is) is to place a v after the http, and before the colon. No “feature=embedded” stuff necessary.
We now return you to your regular programming.
@ huckfunn:
I have visions of this…
ALGORE: What the hell is this?
Delivery Guy: Well is looks like about 102 rail cars of soot.
ALGORE: WTF?????!!!!!!
Delivery Guy: Well you had these contracts and they expired and you have to take delivery according to my bill of laden. Could you sign here please?
The last cool comet was Hale Bopp. We went up to the Griffith Observatory to get a nice peek at that one. cw, you might be able to remember this. There was an eclipse of partial eclipse of the moon as its closet approach. The Heavens Gate people could also tell me, but alas, they’re all dead Jim.
@ Macker:
Mike C. could not see the embed and I thought I could just put the plain old link. Right clicked the embed video and selected (hee is the key part) the embed URL which is an alternative to the “v” trick. Cut paste and viola — embedded it again
Anyway it was not that important but it got my panties in a wad. They are unwadded now.
Mike C. wrote:
With smatterings of food and music vids.
unclassifiable wrote:
Thats easy to comprehend based on your gravatar. /
@ song_and_dance_man:
I think about changing the ol’ gravatar sometimes.
But then I think about Mr. RCI and how things are and I decide against it.
Later folks.
“milyo”
Seriously, dude? Try “milieu”.
And how do they know it’s never been out of the Oort Cloud before? Did it get fleeced by the 3-card monte gang hanging out in the orbit of Neptune?
Mike C. wrote:
Nope it’s raining here in Phoenix…so I slept in late and listened to the rain drumming on the roof.
Bad Lip Reading- the Inauguration. H/T Ozzie Saffa
@ The Osprey:
Well, I dutifully went in to the office this morning, but I gave it up because I was bored out of my skull. 4 more work days to go on this one, and hopefully somebody will want to at least talk to me about what I’ve done and written. But in any case, I am OUTTA HERE come Friday.
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
milyo.
milyo.
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
orbital ephemeris tells us where it came from. milyo!