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General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: Lightages on February 04, 2013, 12:41:39 am

Title: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: Lightages on February 04, 2013, 12:41:39 am
Just a quick and dirty video of the comet as it flies through our solar system for a few hours. I was going to take more images tonight but we have a rare cloudy night.

http://youtu.be/CCB6kdJ27M8 (http://youtu.be/CCB6kdJ27M8)
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: ecat on February 04, 2013, 12:59:34 am
That was fun, looks like a phosphor dot on the screen of the most gigantic scope in the universe :)

Thanks for sharing.
 
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: ee851 on February 04, 2013, 01:02:16 am
Oh, it's not real time, eh?      I guess I ought to have realized anything in the night sky showing apparent motion to my eye would be a meteorite.     Thank you for showing me.   What kind of telescope did you use?    Do you remember the coordinates?    I am very fond of astronomy.     I did manage to view Halley's comet during its last perihelion.
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: SLJ on February 04, 2013, 01:08:36 am
Under the video he said he used a Canon 7D on an Orion ED80.

Nice video.  It's too cold here in the north now to drag out my Mead 8".
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: Lightages on February 04, 2013, 01:35:30 am
What kind of telescope did you use?
The telescope is an Orion ED80, 600mm focal length, f7.5. I also have a field flattener on it. It is an apochromatic refractor with high dispersion optical elements that almost completely remove chromatic aberrations. 

Do you remember the coordinates?

http://mpcapp1.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/returnprepeph.cgi?d=c&o=CK12F060 (http://mpcapp1.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/returnprepeph.cgi?d=c&o=CK12F060) you need to enter this information in a planetarium program like
http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/ (http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/)
and see where the comet is at any specific time. This one is over the south pole so unless you live where I am in latitude or more south you will not see it.
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: MikeK on February 04, 2013, 02:08:46 am
That's great.  You're lucky to have such clear skies.

7th magnitude right now at 0.99 AU and it's supposed to get to 2nd or 3rd magnitude in March at 0.7 AU.  Northern hemisphere won't get a look until April.

Enjoy it, it won't be back for 11,000 years!
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: digsys on February 04, 2013, 02:21:47 am
Quote from: MikeK
Enjoy it, it won't be back for 11,000 years!
Do you know what time? :-)
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: TerraHertz on February 04, 2013, 09:45:27 am
Nice video!

Have you encountered the 'Electric Universe' theories, including the nature of comets as an electrical/plasma glow-discharge around a primarily rocky body, as opposed to predominantly water-ice body?

It's quite interesting. Some related links here: http://everist.org/archives/links/ (http://everist.org/archives/links/)!_Electric_Universe_links.txt
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: flolic on February 04, 2013, 10:27:28 am
Wow, nice video! I really envy you on dark and clear skies you have down there  :D
My astrophoto equipment is gathering dust for months because of bad weather/Moon/lack of free time and all possible combinations of that...  :(
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: Wytnucls on February 04, 2013, 10:30:45 am
Awesome! Which constellation is it in? Will have a look tonight.

(http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/20135/Comet-Lemmon-LRGB-1536x1188_460x230.jpg)

Ok, it is quite far south, between the Southern Cross and the small Magellanic cloud, at the moment:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=11591673&l=41d10d92a6&id=151050483025 (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=11591673&l=41d10d92a6&id=151050483025)
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: Lightages on February 04, 2013, 04:01:40 pm
Nice video!

Have you encountered the 'Electric Universe' theories, including the nature of comets as an electrical/plasma glow-discharge around a primarily rocky body, as opposed to predominantly water-ice body?

It's quite interesting. Some related links here: http://everist.org/archives/links/ (http://everist.org/archives/links/)!_Electric_Universe_links.txt

Lots of links on that page and not enough time to read them all. I do know that there have been a couple of missions to comets and the data and samples still point to predominantly dirty snowballs.
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: Lightages on February 04, 2013, 04:04:30 pm
Yeah, dark skies and clear on average of 320 days per year are some of the reasons I moved here. Unless you are further south than the equator there isn't much chance of seeing the comet right now. It is also just below the threshold of naked eye observation.
Title: Re: Who likes astronomy? Comet Lemmon c/2012 F6 from my "backyard" in Chile.
Post by: SLJ on February 04, 2013, 04:12:12 pm
Quote from: MikeK
Enjoy it, it won't be back for 11,000 years!
Do you know what time? :-)

Nighttime...