Bright Comet : C/2011 L4 (Panstarrs) Mar. 2013!

[Mariner]

Maybe can organise a session to catch PANSTARRS? I would like to be able to see comets as they come but unfortunately I just dun have the skills over my current lot of equipment to search for the really faint fuzz balls so I hope ISON will really put up a good show.

[Mariner]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21701641

Good read to whet the appetite. Now if only the clouds clear at dusk...

[starfinder]

Nice read, but instead of whetting my appetite, it's making me even more frustrated with the clouds!

It's been very cloudy and hazy in the low west for the past several days here in Singapore.

However, a comet watcher not too far away at Port Dickson (Negri Sembilan) managed to image the comet yesterday (8 March), though he says viewing it was difficult:
http://spaceweather.com/gallery/indiv_u ... uv1v8cj541

More images, some quite fabulous, here: http://spaceweather.com/gallery/index.php?title=comet

The comet has recently been reported by experienced observers to be a first magnitude object, as bright as mag 1.1:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Come ... ssage/5066

That puts paid to all the Panstarrs naysayers who puffed it down to mag 3 in their earlier predictions.

Oh well, even if I don't get to see it with my own eyes, I have still enjoyed watching its progress in the past several weeks and viewing the images online nearly everyday. Been learning at lot more about comets too.

Hopefully the Mersing expedition members will see it there! Good luck to all!

[starfinder]

I just saw Comet Panstarrs!

At Labrador Park. Through my 8" SCT LX90, with a 14mm eyepiece.

Finally, after trying since last Fri, on about 7 days in total.

Comet was quite faint. Saw it from about 7.30pm to 8pm.

More details later...

[Airconvent]

Great Gavin....you're patient and you were rewarded!

[jiahao1986]

Congrats Gavin! Saw your photo on Spaceweather also, very good composition with the ships XD

Here's my shot taken from NTU. Though not visible to unaided eyes, the comet looked pretty impressive in binos and through NTU's 10 inch Dob.



Jia Hao

[rlow]

The sky was terrible after the heavy downpour, so it was quite fortunate that Jiahao and I, together with the guys from NTU, managed to observe Comet Panstarrs at about 10 degrees off the western horizon on 10 Mar 2013 from about 7:30pm to 7:45pm at NTU.

It was observed with the "Yellow Sub" 6 inch f/8 at about 30x with 40mmXW and the NTU 10 inch dob.

I managed to capture a shot using EOS 6D with 400mm f/5.6, 1/8 sec, iso3200.



This cropped but otherwise unedited photo reflects quite closely what we saw in the 6" at 30x.

[Mariner]

Lucky. I drove all the way to Tuas, braved the mosquitoes and still can't see anything other than the clouds....

[weixing]

Hi,
I also no luck from 15th floor... can only see cloud cover....

Have a nice day.

[starfinder]

A belated follow-up post...

Thanks Rich and Jia Hao for your comments! Yes Rich, I was quite persistent (not sure about being patient!) with this comet as I've been following its story for more than year since its discovery and was very keen to view it.

Some further details of my sighting of Comet Panstarrs on Sat 9 March, which was 1 day before perihelion: I first spotted it at just around 7.30pm in the eyepiece of my scope; a 14mm Pentax XL in a Meade LX-90 8" SCT (143x). I continued to view it more or less continuously till around 7.55pm, looking away from the eyepiece now and then to take photographs. At 7.30pm, the comet was about 11.3 deg above the horizon, and the Sun was 15.3 degs away from the comet at only 3 deg below the horizon. At 7.55pm, the comet was about 5.2 deg above the horizon and the Sun was 9.3 deg below the horizon.

The comet's coma appeared to be very small in the eyepiece, smaller than Jupiter or Mars. It was highly condensed and appeared to be an almost stellar-like airy disc. The inner disc was surrounded by a light fuzz, and another fuzzy glow (the tail) extended upwards in a V shape which was tilted in the 1 o'clock direction away from the Sun (this tilt direction was correct since the view through the SCT was laterally inverted). Both the coma and the fainter tail were white, with little trace of any colour. The coma was easy to see, but the tail less so.

I could not see the comet in the 50mm finderscope or with unaided eyes. I'm sure that was due to the heavy layer of atmospheric haze that is typically near the horizon in our skies. The haze has been particularly heavy in the past 2 weeks but just less so on that Saturday (probably due to the heavy downpour a few hours earlier).

I've tried to view the comet again on each day since that Sat but have been unable to do so. We have bright sunny skies during the daytime these days, clear bright stars overhead at night, but everything below 20-25 deg seems to be blocked out nearly everywhere by the atmospheric haze or clouds, particularly in the West to North directions around sunset.

Anyway, here is a photo which I took that Sat of the comet. Canon EOS 60D on a tripod, at ISO 800 f/4 2s, with a Canon 70-300L lens at 70mm, image cropped, contrast and colour saturation adjusted.