Comet 103P Hartley

[bish]

Still no joy with the 15x70s, but then there is some thin cloud passing over so no surprise

[lukebl]

I have to say, though, it's a very dull (i.e. boring) comet. And I've seen a lot of comets.

(dives for cover)

[Moonshane]

yippee. I went to a darker site tonight and managed to see it with my 15x70s first and then in the scope, better in the bins actually. once located I could readily find it in my 7x36s too. back home I could still see easily in my 15x70s but not the 7x36s.

it's a quite nice and very large hazy patch with a brighter core.

seeing was appalling tonight, very strong winds and anything above 100x was rubbish.

now I know what it looks like I should be able to track it across the sky.

[RobertCL]

I did eventually manage to find it again so I think it must have just been a period of bad seeing or something. Managed to get the camera setup and auto guiding running, then about 4mins later a load of low cloud /mist rolled in.

Oh well, at least I've got to see it!

[QldLiz]

I also managed to get it last night in my 11x70 bins. Wasnt easy as very low to horizon downunder, and very murky in that atmosphere.

Had also been taking some pics, and wasnt until it showed up clearly in my images with a 50mm lens, that I knew exactly where it was.

Very large rounded, nebulous region, and seen mainly using averted vision. Definitley not naked eye here .... yet.

Hard to believe its mag ~ 5.6 ish.

[NickH]

I got and email a few days ago from a lady in France who asked for permission to use one of my pictures in her magazine..

La comète Hartley 2 au plus près de la Terre, le 20 octobre | National Geographic

Her magazine being National Geographic!

[Mark at Beaufort]

Excellent result Nick - you have been rather successful in many areas of late - well done and congratulations

Decided to view the comet with my William Optics SD66. Plotted the position from StarryNight 5. Used the Panoptic 22mm to locate and then viewed with the 13mm Ethos. 30x and 3 degrees 21' FOV. Diffused but clear.

Mark

[John]

I have to say, though, it's a very dull (i.e. boring) comet. And I've seen a lot of comets.

(dives for cover)

Well, it's a comet that's close to naked eye visibility so worth finding for that reason, but I tend to agree, so far, not a wonderful object.

[NickH]

This is first light for my new Atik 4000 CCD (FOV approx 80' on the TMB105)

This is not a dull comet...it's enormous

da 0.0, dR 16.0 for the tail processing in IRIS

Median and SD combined for the main shot (Maxim DL and Photoshop CS5)

[Talitha]

An excellent observer in Sweden (Timo Karhula) says he saw it naked-eye on 10 Oct, but his sky is to die for... he said the Gegenschein was 'obvious' that night.

Must be nice.

[Polar Bear]

An excellent observer in Sweden (Timo Karhula) says he saw it naked-eye on 10 Oct, but his sky is to die for... he said the Gegenschein was 'obvious' that night.

Must be nice.

Not much chance of any Gegenschein in these parts ! I spent 30 minutes with my 10 x 50's and averted vision last night to get a glimpse of 103P.

I was rewarded with 2 meteors in the same field of view as a bonus.

[Peter Drew]

Comet 103P Hartley visible right now (23.53) in 10x50 binoculars, Large and very diffuse, no detail seen.

[earth titan]

Found it, despite the moonshine :-)

[NickH]

Got a rotation calculation which independently matches the first one I came up with (and quoted to Dr Emily Baldwin and Dr Paul Roche at UCL last weekend), of approx 19.59 to 19.75 hours...I am still erring somewhere between 16 to 20 hrs, but Toni Scarmato of Italy thinks the 19.5 calculation is good!

[Hypernova]

Has anyone got the code for the ssystem.ini file in stellarium for 103p? I had it before but I have done a reinstall and have lost the code.

[REB]

This is what I found and pasted into my ssytem.ini file.

[103P-Hartley]

name = 103P-Hartley

parent = Sun

coord_func = comet_orbit

radius = 10

oblateness = 0.0

albedo = 1

lighting = true

halo = true

color = 1.0,1.0,1.0

tex_map = nomap.png

tex_halo = star16x16.png

orbit_Epoch = 2455470.5

orbit_SemiMajorAxis = 3.4726656

orbit_Eccentricity = 0.6951420

orbit_Inclination = 13.61768

orbit_AscendingNode = 219.76087

orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 181.19852

orbit_MeanAnomaly = 355.84874

Enjoy

[Hypernova]

Cheers REB, you're a legend

[firefiten]

Tonight may be a good viewing night, fingers crossed. The moon may hamper my first attempt to see the comet. Sitting in my back garden near Cambridge, but off in the country some what.

[Pulpstar]

Not sure if I saw Hartley 2 tonight - semi rural location, just about 6 pleides visible with naked eye (10ish with binocs) one or two odd lights about.

Anyway saw a shooting star at 23:54 and can identify Auriga/capella readily now.

[NickH]

She's bright enough to autoguide with an ST102/F5 DSI-C on tonight

[CaptPaul]

where abouts in the sky is it?

Paul

[russ]

It's in Auriga at the moment or at least it was Wednesday morning. This is the image i took yesterday morning. It was on its way towards the open clusters.

[NickH]

Liking that shot Russ!

[Astroscot2]

Well, it's a comet that's close to naked eye visibility so worth finding for that reason, but I tend to agree, so far, not a wonderful object.

I was lucky to be in a very dark location last weekend and when the moon set the sky was stunning, From the reports of this one brightening I had somehow expected this to be naked eye. I could find no trace with the naked eye and the comet with my 10x50s was just an elongated smudge. M33 was looking more impressive! If it was not for this Epoxi mission I doubt few would really be bothering about it.

[NickH]

Visually, I agree totally, it's a faint smudge (we've been spoilt with Holmes etc), but imaging...the coma is huge, it's undergone at least two outbursts (and I am checking on a third one now with data from 14th to 16th)..and images like a dream