Catch This Season’s ‘Other’ Comet: S2 PanSTARRS

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Catch This Season’s ‘Other’ Comet: S2 PanSTARRS

Catch This Season’s ‘Other’ Comet: S2 PanSTARRS:

Comet C/2014 S2 PanSTARRS, imaged on October 10th, 2015. Image credit and copyright: Tom Wildoner

Now is the time to catch binocular Comet C/2014 S2 PanSTARRS, as it tops +8 magnitude ahead of predictions this month and crosses circumpolar northern skies. Will this Christmas comet stay bright post-perihelion, rivaling other comets into early 2016?

How 'bout Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina, huh? The comet took center stage early this month, as it broke +7 magnitude in brightness, experienced a tail disconnection event, and grouped with Venus and the waning crescent Moon in the dawn sky.

Expect comet US10 Catalina to remain a fine binocular object kicking off 2016, reminiscent of the binocular comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy from just this past winter. But there's another comet for northern hemisphere residents currently performing above expectations. Comet C/2014 S2 PanSTARRS is the comet you most likely aren't watching, but should be. The comet has recently brightened ahead of expectations to +8^th magnitude, and may top out in the coming weeks at +7^th magnitude post-perihelion.

Comet S2 PanSTARRS reached perihelion 2.1 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun just last week on December 9^th, 2015. Discovered on September 22^nd, 2014 by the prolific PanSTARRS 1 survey based atop mount Haleakala on Maui in Hawaii, S2 PanSTARRS is on an estimated 2,217 year orbit, inclined at a steep angle of 65 degrees relative to the ecliptic and the general plane of the solar system. This makes for its current residency in the realm of the northern celestial pole, and the comet remains circumpolar above latitude 30 degrees north for the duration of this apparition, crossing for the constellation Draco in late 2015 into the constellation Ursa Minor in early 2016.

We get a handful of binocular comets each year, faint fuzzies looking like unresolved globular clusters. Such a passage would've went unrecorded in pre-telescopic times, and hunting for comets the likes of S2 PanSTARRS partly inspired Charles Messier to make his first and famous deep sky catalog, marking the celestial skies for comet hunters as if to say 'here be cometary impostors...'

But Comet S2 PanSTARRS won't stay bright for long.

Here's the run down over the next few months of key astronomical dates with destiny for this fleeting comet. The Full and New Moon phases are also denoted, marking weeks favoring dark vs light-polluted skies.

-December 25^th: The Moon reaches Full.

-December 31st: Stationary in its apparent motion, before appearing to reverse direction to the northeast.

-January 1^st: Tops out in brightness at +7^th mag?

-January 10^th: New Moon.

-January 22^nd: 20 degrees from Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina crossing through the constellation Draco.

-January 24^th: Passes less than one degree from the +4.8 magnitude star 18 Draconis.

-January 24^th: Full Moon.

-February 8^th: New Moon.

-February 20^th: Passes into the constellation Ursa Minor.

-February 22^nd: Full Moon.

-February 27th: Closest Earth approach, at 1.83 AU distant. Moving at a maximum apparent speed of 30' (half a degree, about the angular size of a Full Moon) per day.

-February 27th: Passes just over one degree from the +3 magnitude star Pherkad (Gamma Ursae Minoris).

-February 29th: Reaches its most northerly point, at a declination 71 degrees north, just 19 degrees from the northern celestial pole.

-March 1: Drops back below +10 magnitude?

-March 9^th: New Moon.

-March 18^th: Crosses back into the constellation Draco.

The best time to catch Comet S2 PanSTARRS over the next few months is in the early morning hours. From latitude 30 north, the comet sits 23 degrees above the NNE horizon around 5AM local on Christmas Day; the farther north you go, the higher the comet will be above the horizon.

In binoculars or a small telescope, expect comet S2 PanSTARRS to appear as a fuzzy indistinct 'star,' which stubbornly refuses to snap into focus, like an unresolved globular. I would show off S2 PanSTARRS at a public star party under dark skies. When it comes to comets, brighter +10^th magnitude triggers our 'is interesting, worthy of note for skilled observers' alarm.

A caveat is in order; expect any given comet to appear visually fainter than a star of the same quoted brightness. As with deep sky objects, said brightness is smeared out over the expanse of the comet, giving it an overall lower surface brightness appearance for the viewer.

And now for the wow factor: the last time comet S2 PanSTARRS passed Earth in the 3^rd century BC, Carthage was battling an upstart Rome during the first Punic Wars. The comet very likely passed through the inner solar system unnoticed and unrecorded, as it was never a naked eye object. The comet's next pass through the inner solar system is out around 4232 AD, give or take a year...

Along with US10 Catalina and comet 2013 X1 PanSTARRS, expect S2 PanSTARRS to join the ranks of binocular 2016 comets... more to come on that soon.

Remember, the next 'Great Comet' could swing through the inner solar system at any time... and we're definitely due!

CASA DE ORAÇÃO - Esta determinado que o mal saia de nossas vidas e recebamos as bênçãos do Senhor !

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Tuesday, December 15, 2015