Comet Wild 2 is a short periodic comet with an orbital period of 6 years. Before its close encounter with Jupiter during September 1974 his orbit was almost circular and had a 43 year period. But the gravitational pull of the giant gas planet made Wild 2 to a member of the inner solar system. In 2004 the comet was target of the NASA mission "Stardust", which took samples of the coma and returned them back to earth. Our image was obtained during a trip to southern france in February 2010 and shows a nice 1 degree long tail.
Astronomy Cast takes a fact based journey through the cosmos as it offers listeners weekly discussions on astronomical topics ranging from planets to cosmology.
Welcome!
Since 2002 our little observatory is mainly dedicated to NEO follow-up work, chasing and confirming newly discovered minor planets crossing the earth' orbit. After years and nearly 2000 positions measured we finally made our first discoveries in 2008. Compared to the long lists of other amateurs our 4 MBA's (main belt asteroids) up to this date are nearly nothing. But the first two discoveries of 2008QX19 and 2008RZ77 came within a week and we were happy. But both objects faded away beyond the range of our telescope. In December 2009 they "brighten" to magnitude 20.2 and 20.9 and hopefully we'll be able to recover both of them.
If you are an astrometrist and and looking for targets please see our follow-up page.
Besides this exciting work we still find time to make some pretty pictures of the other inhabitants of the universe. Our efforts and hopefully also our progress can be followed in the gallery. Enjoy!
Bright summer comet 2010C/2009 R1 McNaught is currently the brightest comet in the summer sky. After a long break due to bad weather we finally managed to catch this object in the morning dawn of June 5 in the low northeastern sky.
During this 20 minute exposure the last quarter moon was also already well above the horizon. Currently C/2009 R1 reaches magnitude 6 and is a nice object for binoculars. If predictions are true he could get as bright as magnitude 3-4 but observations with the naked eye will be difficult because of its low altitude.
The best observing conditions will arise in the following two weeks till mid June. Mc Naught reaches its closest approach to earth on June 15. After June 22 the moon will again interfere and the angular distance to the sun is further decreasing.
The image presents a nice long plasma tail and a shorter dust tail. The plasma tail is in fact much longer. Our 14" with a focal length of 2.100 mm show only a small piece of 25 x 16 arcminutes. After the image we inspected to comet visually through the 14 inch telescope. The tail was not visible but the coma bright, round and approx. 5' in diameter.
Rob McNaught discovered the comet on September 9 with the 0.5 Uppsala Schmidt Telescope of the Siding Spring Observatory at a magnitude of 18. Siding Spring is also involved in continuous asteroid surveys.
Comet P/2010 H2 developingA few days after its discovery Comet P/2010 H2 (Vales) is further developing its appearance to a "real" comet. The former asteroidal NEOCP object 04F0011 now shows a nice 2' size coma.  The left image was taken on April 19 and the right on April 22. Both shots were made with the 14 inch telescope and the SBIG ST8-XME camera in 2x2 binning mode. Exposure time was 40 x 30 seconds with no filter. Still there is no real tail but the false nucleus is slightly off center and the coma expands more to the northeast.Comet Vales has a Hilda like orbit and circles the sun in a distance of 3.06 AU every 7.5 years. Hilda type asteroids have a stable orbit in a 2:3 resonance to Jupiter, which means that they orbit the sun 3 times for every 2 times that Jupiter does. So they stay away from the giant gas planet avoiding dangerous close approaches. But it is very likely that Comet Vales will be kicked out of orbit by Jupiter someday. Comet P/2010 H2Comet P/2010 H2 is a somewhat mysterious object. It first appeared on the NEOCP on April 16 as an unusually bright 12 mag discovery with the preliminary designation 04F0011 submitted by the Crni Vrh Observatory. Soon a discussion emerged about the nature of this object on the MPML. Because it could not be found on previous images of the big surveys it was proposed that it might be a comet outburst.  Another indication was the fact that other observers found a slightly elongated FWHM on their images, compared to field stars of the same magnitude. MPEC 2010-H12 was issued on April 17 by the Minor Planet Center announcing the discovery of a new Comet P/2010 H2 by J. Vales of Crni Vrh (106), Slovenia. Now only one day later our images made with the 14 inch show a well elongated object with a clearly visible coma. It is expected that the new comet will develop a more significant coma in the following weeks. Richard Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey ruled out that the bright object was not detected because of interference with bright field stars in all 4 frames made of the area by the survey. That means that Comet P/2010 H2 brightened in fact by at least 8 magnitudes within a day. That reminds of the massive outburst of Comet 17/P Holmes in October 2007. Comet C/2009 K5 (McNaught)April 17 was a beautiful day with absolutely no clouds. The daytime sky was blue maybe a little haze was noticeable but not realy sure if that was caused by the volcanic ash coming from islandic volcano Eyjafjallajoküll.  After sunset the crescent Moon and Venus were a fine sight to see. The first half of the night was dedicated to follow-up work of NEOS K10F81A, K10G07S, K10G24A, K10G30H. For a closer at 3 am I decided to take a peak on Comet McNaught. With a brightness of 9 mag it was moving fast through the rich starfields of the milkyway. A single 30 second exposure showed a 5' large coma and a approx. 9' long tail in PA 120°. So McNaught is heading now to its perihel on April 30. For an animation showing the movement between the stars from 01:03 - 1:26 UT click here. ( 4 MB large) |
