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The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Comet McNaught update
Jan. 16, 2007 | 15:19 PST | 23:19 UTC
Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) has now completely traversed the field of view of the SOHO spacecraft. Doug Ellison was kind enough to send me a version of the animation that he'd assembled. The version below contains only half the frames, at only a quarter the full resolution; there are also Quicktime versions of the full animation available at higher resolution (see the links in the image caption). Comet McNaught from SOHO, Jan 11-14, 2007This animation is composed of 60 images of the Sun's corona captured between January 11 and 16, 2007, from the SOHO spacecraft. The Sun itself is blocked from view to permit SOHO to see the corona. The very bright comet C/2006 P1 McNaught passes the field of view on the left. The bright dot that moves from right to left is the planet Mercury.
Quicktime versions of this animation:
1/4 resolution (90 k)
1/2 resolution (1.3 MB)
Full resolution (9.8 MB)
Credit: ESA, NASA SOHO / LASCO team |
The completion of this passage, from north to south of the Sun, means that the comet has now passed into the skies of southern hemisphere viewers. I never managed to see it, myself; I tried the trick of using the shadow of a building to hide the Sun's glare, but couldn't pick the comet out in the sky.
Just for fun, I thought I'd post this bit of journal from one British observer's experience of watching comet McNaught. Stuart Atkinson wrote the following at unmannedspaceflight.com on January 10.Sometimes - just sometimes - I LOVE this hobby. :)
Tonight I notched up my third, and most unexpected and possibly most rewarding too, sighting of Comet McNaught. Like the comet, it came from nowhere. I was shopping in town, and coming out of WH Smiths looked up and saw the sky that had previously been a flat sheet of unbroken grey was now tattered and ripped everywhere, with great, tantalising gaps of bright blue showing through. What?!?!? That wasn't supposed to happen! Within half an hour I was setting off up to Kendal Castle again, this time travelling light -- just my binocs, digital camera and SLR in my quick-grab rucksack I keep by the door. It's been blowing a gale all day here in Kendal, with sheets of icy rain slapping across the town on and off all day, and as I walked up to the castle again the rain returned and the open patches of clear sky started to close up again, but I kept going, putting faith in the gut feeling I had that after last night's disappointment perhaps, just perhaps, the Universe was going to take pity on me and give me another glimpse of the comet.
I wasn't wrong. Reaching the shelter of the inside of the castle ruins I wedged myself into a corner of one of the ruined towers, steadying myself against the buffetting wind on the high hilltop, and just waited. And, yes... the rain eventually stopped, the sky ripped open again and after sweeping the wounded area above the SW horizon I saw the comet again, even brighter than last night, silvery white against the bruised orange blue sky. Yes!!
For the next half hour the comet and I played hide-and-seek. It kept slipping behind the drifting clouds, only for me to find it again. At one point, and I'll never forget this, the rain was stinging me from the right, pelting in from the north, while I watched the comet through my binoculars. I was actually observing the comet in the rain... how crazy is that?!?!
There was no chance of taking any pictures tonight: the wind was too strong, slapping me like a hand every time I dared emerge from my little stone shelter, so all I could do was watch the comet through my binocs, grudgingly stopping now and again to wipe rain off the lenses. Eventually the comet won the game of hide-and-seek, it found a place to hide behind a big, grey wedge of cloud and I just couldn't find it. But to be honest, I didn't care, not like I did last night. Last night I was sure I'd had my last view of the comet, but tonight I proved myself wrong, and it felt pretty good!
Anyway, that was it for tonight, so I packed my binocs away and said goodbye to the comet, surrendering it to the southern sky, cos I'm sure I won't see it a fourth time, and set off back for home.
Before tonight I was sure that, for me, Comet McNaught would always be my "nearly comet", the one I nearly saw at its best. After tonight, it'll always be The Comet I Saw In The Rain. Which is pretty cool. The experience moved Stu to write some poetry, which you can read on his website.
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