Comet Encke in the next few days

[Gary]

" One of the most studied comets in history will be favorably passing by the Earth in the next few days ... ..."

Check it out :
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/comet_encke_031114.html

[Airconvent]

" One of the most studied comets in history will be favorably passing by the Earth in the next few days ... ..."

Check it out :
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/comet_encke_031114.html

Supposed to be 17 Nov near Cygnus. However, it will be unimpressive without a tail. It has an orbit of only 3.3 years and passing by the sun too many times has boiled away most of its ice layers....I was told you will only be able to see a blurred and faint fuzzy ball....

rich

[Jeremy]

There is an ephemeris for the equator at:

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/2p.eq

Indicates it is faily birght (8th magnitude), but it's reported to be pretty large and diffuse. If anytone is travelling to dark skies, they should be able to pick it up in large binos.

Success!
Jeremy

[Airconvent]

There is an ephemeris for the equator at:

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/2p.eq

Indicates it is faily birght (8th magnitude), but it's reported to be pretty large and diffuse. If anytone is travelling to dark skies, they should be able to pick it up in large binos.

Success!
Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,
Not too sure if we can find it on a pair of binos in our skies. Maybe too diffuse to make out clearly? I've powered down my ETX and removed the batteries currently...so not sure if Enke can be found in my autostar. Any ETX user can confirm this?

rich

[Jeremy]

Hi Rich,

As I said, I think one will need dark skies to pick this one up visually (like Mersing). Some reports I have seen state the mag. is more like 10 or 12, using standard cometry mag. estimation methods, since it is so diffuse.

It's also quite tricky to pick up by CCD since it has a rapid proper motion, which makes stacking of images difficult and single longer images are smeared:

http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Go well!
Jeremy

[Airconvent]

Hi Rich,

As I said, I think one will need dark skies to pick this one up visually (like Mersing). Some reports I have seen state the mag. is more like 10 or 12, using standard cometry mag. estimation methods, since it is so diffuse.

It's also quite tricky to pick up by CCD since it has a rapid proper motion, which makes stacking of images difficult and single longer images are smeared:

http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Go well!
Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,
As expected, the comet is not much to look at and that is using ccd;
imaging trying to see it visually!..... But the animation shot is pretty good. At least we get an idea of how the comet now behaves. One wonder how it would have looked like during its initial years before its tail was subdued.
Ironically, I read that Enke, from which the comet is named after, documented the comet's passage through the solar system for 40 years, yet till the day he died, had never looked at it through a telescope.
Could it be the comet was too diffuse to be interesting or that he believed in the old chinese belief that its bad luck to look at a "broom" star lest it sweeps your luck away?



rich

[Jeremy]

came across another image of Encke:

http://vulpecula.home.sapo.pt/CCDImages ... 19-Nov.jpg

Tak FS128 @ f8.1
SBIG ST10XME NABG
45 x 1 minute exposures binned 2x2

BAA Comet Section web pages says:
2P/Encke is now within visual range and is brightening quite rapidly. It is very large and diffuse and although visible in binoculars at 8th magnitude, in many telescopes under high magnification it may be as faint as 12th magnitude. It is best seen in binoculars from a dark sky site in the early evening.

Cheers,
Jeremy

[Airconvent]

came across another image of Encke:

http://vulpecula.home.sapo.pt/CCDImages ... 19-Nov.jpg

Tak FS128 @ f8.1
SBIG ST10XME NABG
45 x 1 minute exposures binned 2x2

BAA Comet Section web pages says:
2P/Encke is now within visual range and is brightening quite rapidly. It is very large and diffuse and although visible in binoculars at 8th magnitude, in many telescopes under high magnification it may be as faint as 12th magnitude. It is best seen in binoculars from a dark sky site in the early evening.

Cheers,
Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,
What's the chance this comet will be visible from Singapore, considering the clouds and pollution..?
Looks like your photo is the best "view" we can get...heh