If you have ever wanted to get into astrophotography, you have reason to "gear up" now. I don't know if it is making national news yet, but a comet was just days ago discovered by a couple of Russian astronomers that appears to have all of the ingredients to be one of the greatest comets in our lifetimes, and maybe one of the greatest in human civilization's history. http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1209/25comet/
Normally it takes a while after discovery to calculate an accurate orbit, but this comet was found on pre-discovery sky surveys (where it was previously overlooked as a comet) and so they have 9 months of data (over 50 orbital datapoints). What makes it incredible is the nearness with which it is going to skim past the sun (.012 AU) and then the nearness with which is flies past the earth (.4 AU). This comet has the chance of being visible in a broad daylight sky, brighter than the moon. This will be an incredible object from Nov. to Jan. in 2013/2014. Currently, this comet is known by the following designation: C/2012 S1 (ISON) If you want to hang out with the comet nerds, including at least one of the discoverers of this comet: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/comets-ml/ Before this, we were looking forward to another great comet in the Spring of 2013 (known by the designation C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS ) This comet alone would be enough to make most comet lovers wet their pants, as it is expected to flirt with negative visual magnitudes in March 2013: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2011L4/2011L4.html but it has now been joined by a very big brother that looks to wildly overshadow it. 2013 is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime year for comets. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
