Comet 103P/hartley 2

[frogesque]

Only a small comet and still faint,(mag 7) but heading for a close Earth encounter on 20th October. Sould be fairly easy to spot with binoculars at the moment, given clear skies, as it passes near the the bottom of the W in Cassiopeia. Superb photo on Spaceweather today!

http://spaceweather.com/

Finder chart:

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/images/CometHartley2-bw.jpg

[The watcher]

Interesting, is it up on the "NEO" website yet?

Just found it, its not that close though:

0.1209 = AU Distance (AU Distance = 150million kilometres)

47 = LD (LD = Lunar Distance 384'000 Kilometres)

Diameter = 1.6km

Mag = 0.0

Relative Velocity = 11.8 kps.

[Gray-Wolf]

Interesting, is it up on the "NEO" website yet?

Just found it, its not that close though:

0.1209 = AU Distance (AU Distance = 150million kilometres)

47 = LD (LD = Lunar Distance 384'000 Kilometres)

Diameter = 1.6km

Mag = 0.0

Relative Velocity = 11.8 kps.

It's whether it'll grow a nice tail and leave debris for future meteor showers!!!

[The watcher]

This comet is interesting in the fact it has a 150'000km diameter green gas cloud surrounding it.

Otherwise it wouldn't be that visible. The recent shot of it looks fantastic, like a little green mean machine.

Tails already started to form as it heads to the sun, so quite possible we'll see something left behind for meteor showers, it won't be closest to earth until the 20th.

[Mesosphere]

Gonna attempt to view the comet this evening through the bino's if it clears. According to spaceweather.com it's not far from Capella , the brightest star in Auriga.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Calum