Hi all,

I saw the comet tonight. The air wasn't all that clear but you could still see it easily without any binos or scopes. I would estimate the brightness to be about -1 mag.

I'm very pleased about this since this was the first time I saw virgin photons from a comet. :-)

Does anyone have pictures of it taken after perihelion?



cheers

Ewald

You must be the first one in the Southern hemisphere!!!
Lovely!!
Ek is jaloers man!!

Phil

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Hi all,

The comet was even better tonight than yesterday. The tail is pointing upwards from the horizon and has a slight curve to it. IT IS AWESOME! The comet started out brighter than Rigel then faded a bit as it set. I hope the weather holds, I want to see the comet every night, but I think there is bad weather on the way. It's raining in Cape Town and we have some really annoying clouds here in Sutherland. ( For those in South Africa who are interested ) My lightcurve has chunks eaten out of it, $%#& !!!!

Cheers

Ewald

Yesterday evening I made the trip to the summit of Mount Lofty here in Adelaide to see the comet after sunset. The place was packed. There must have been at least 200 people up there, most with binoculars, and even a few with modest telescopes. There was an even mix of children, schoolkids, adults and senior citizens and I liked the way the comet brought together so many people in a common interest. This is the kind of event that starts people off in astronomy. I think we should thank Comet McNaught for recruiting a whole new generation of astronomers.

clop

PS I never would have guessed how incredibly irritating the question "can you see it?" can become when it is repeated several thousand times.

C/2006 P1 (McNaught) is actually far brighter than that. It was estimated to be magnitude -5, which is brighter than Venus, on Sunday.

Dave Mitsky

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good ol brisbane weather... 2 weeks now of clear sky's during the day, but overcast from 4pm onwards. and the forecast isn't in our favour for the next week.

this might be one comet that us QLD'ers will miss. oh well. atleast i have other people's photos :P

After a long stretch of bad weather, my friend Tony Donnagenlo and I attempted to observe Comet McNaught P1 from the ASH Naylor Observatory yesterday afternoon starting around 1:00 p.m. EST (18:00 UT). Although we had no problem locating (using the mount's mechanical setting circles) and observing Venus with the 17-inch f/15 classical Cassegrain (stopped down to 10 and then 6 inches) at 162x (40mm University Optics MK-70) and its 5-inch f/5 finder scope, we could not find Comet McNaught, which was 13 degrees from the Sun and was supposedly shining at approximately magnitude -2, after repeated searches. By 3:00 p.m. EST, the comet was getting pretty close to the horizon and we reluctantly gave up the search.

Sweeps conducted cautiously with Celestron 10x50 and 15x70 binoculars before noon from Tony's residence and later at the observatory proved fruitless as well. This was in all probability the last chance we'll ever have at seeing a comet during bright daylight.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Well, the thing is Dave, let's hope that the old addage of 'you wait for a bus to turn up for ages and three come along at once' is true here. We had two bright comets Hyakutake and Hale Bopp almost in a year, so fingers crossed we get another bright one to follow McNaught!

(OK, I'm clutching at straws, but what the heck!)

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I think I once read somewhere that comets start their lives as frigid objects in the Oort cloud, and that random interactions between these objects sometimes cause their speed to fall below that required to remain in orbit, and then they fall towards the sun. If this is true it would kind of make sense for two or more comets to appear close together, since at least two objects need to interact to initiate the descent of a comet from the cloud?

clop

Consevation of angular momentum. If one comes in, the other goes out.

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Perhaps, but in the 60 years since 1947 there have been only two, or possibly three, comets that were bright enough to be seen without optical aid during the daytime.

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/icq/brightest.html

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Hi All,

Update on what the comet looked like tonight. It is still very bright. A much larger part of the tail could be seen tonight than before. The tail ( I could see) is as long as my outstretched hand is wide at armslength. Don't know how much that is, 5 degrees? I'm at the observatory so it is a very dark site, I'm guessing we have the best views here :-)

I read somewhere that the comet will be best on 15 january. Well, that didn't happen. It's getting better every day.

Cheers,

-Ewald

What if two objects crashed into each other head on. Surely they'd both slow down, and both fall. They're not rubber balls after all.

clop

That would be about 20 degrees.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

these are some of my pics

I'm in the state of Victoria, Australia, and I saw it on the 25th and 26th and it looked like that. It was wonderful! Halley's Comet was like a tiny smudged star, but this was spectacular. I felt in awe of and blessed by nature.

Very nice pics, Chrisn - thanks very much for sharing them! I tried taking a few pics but my camera is pretty crap and nothing came out.