A pretty arrangement of two stars, two planets and the moon this morning at dawn. Details: 16mm lens at f/2.8, 15-second exposure, ISO 800 Photo: Bob King
Looks like 2011 will bring us a fine morning comet. Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1) was discovered on December 10 by Leonid Elenin of Lyubertsy, Russia using a “remote” telescope in New Mexico via the Internet. Although still very dim and distant – 375 million miles from the sun – its preliminary orbit indicates a fairly close pass by the sun September 5 next year. On its outbound journey, Comet Elenin will swing near the Earth and brighten up to binocular and likely naked eye visibility. The geometry of sun-comet-Earth after perihelion (closest approach to the sun) looks favorable for a standout tail. Watch for Comet Elenin to track along the zodiac in Leo the Lion in October’s morning sky.
We’ll keep you posted on predictions when it might first become visible as the comet’s orbit is refined. To see Russian news video of the discoverer and his comet, please click HERE.
Two views of Saturn's storm taken by the Cassini probe. At left we see it through a filter that enhances the light from methane gas in the planet's upper atmosphere. The ring plane is visible as a spider-web-thin line above the much broader shadows cast by the rings. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Well, I finally got my first chance to look at Saturn since the giant storm appeared in the planet’s northern hemisphere a few weeks back. The sky was perfect but hid an unfortunate secret invisible to the eye – air turbulence. As soon as Saturn was centered in the field of view, I could see the trouble right away. The image bounced, boiled and blurred at a furious pace. Despite my best efforts over the next 45 minutes, there weren’t enough moments of calm air to be sure of seeing anything. At times, the rings looked like fat lobes on either side of the planet, much the way Galileo must have seen them in his small telescope. Now I know why he didn’t even know what he was looking at.
That’s OK. I’ll try again. Thankfully we have two superb new photos taken on Christmas Eve by the Cassini probe at Saturn. The storm is nothing short of spectacular when you have a ring side seat. While you enjoy the pictures, consider that the main storm spot is 3,600 miles wide or nearly as big as Mars. The entire storm cloud measures 36,000 miles across.
Hi Bob, stumbled on your site looking up comet elenin on google. Nice site, clean and easy on the eyes. I’v been and amateur since the 50′s and have my own obsetvatory here in northere Az. 4 scopes 77mm to 13 inches. I do some simple photography and give star parties locally. My greatest joy is sharing the sky with friends and neighbors. I write a column for the local landowners association on what’s up in the sky.
Thanks, Al Schober
Hi Al! Nice to meet another person who loves sharing astronomy. I bet you’ve got nice, dark skies for star parties. Thanks for writing, and if you’d like to see a particular topic covered, just let me know.
do u think comet elenin will destroy the world
No Jose, I do not. No impact is predicted.
Jose isn’t talking about an impact. The alignment of this comet is being discussed as a major influence in global seismic activity. Many alarmists are saying the April 11th alignment will cause major earthquakes. They said that for the March 15th alignment too. The Japan earthquake was on March 11th, who knows.
The Ring of Fire is very active either way. Japan has 4 and 5 earthquakes daily, Alaska and Cali are having 2s to 4s also.
Hi Brad. Thanks for writing. There’s a lot of baloney on the Web at the moment about alignments and other ‘end of the world’ stuff regarding this comet that simply aren’t true. This kind of hype appears whenever something cool is going on in the sky — whether a planetary conjunction, meteor shower, etc. It’s based on ignorance and maybe a certain fearful mindset. Elenin won’t cause earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. just as planetary alignments don’t. I plan a blog on the topic this week with updates, etc. to address some of the nuttiness going around.
what is elenin astro bob a new planet or a comet?
if its a comet i think imma gonna cry cause im only
a kid i dont want to die early
Elenin is a comet and it will look very pretty in the early fall sky before dawn. Take a deep breath — no one’s going to die
oh thank you bob your great
know im calm thx bob more question to ask you
because im looking up to the sky when its night
btw thank you very much bob ^^
Ask anytime, Mitch. That’s why I’m here.
oh yeah by the way my teacher says ”at night the comet elenin just stays like a star-looking”
i wanna see comet
)
and its hard to find i dont have an telescope men! i wish i have one
elenin and one more thing bob im from philippines but i like your site its cool
and i experience something as this site my friends here dont know what elenin is hahahaha
Mitch, the comet is still very, very faint right now. I can’t see it in any of my telescopes. I will give updates and a full report as it brightens. I’d love to visit the Philippines sometime.
wow…i wanna see it if you already post the picture of the comet elenin
hey bob,is it true that December 21 2012 is the end of the world?
for me.its not true because i know God loves us..right?
to many persons say that even if im in school my crazy classmates saying
”December 21 2012 is the end of the world” and i just said hes crazy.
astro bob…i saw the nasa time loops of x1 and it shows that x1 will cross earths orbit and slightly above on or around oct 18….about .234 au to .15….and we will pass though the comets orbit around nov 6….now this is a fresh comet….i heard we might have a great meteor shower from it even fireballs…heres the nasa link…thank you dan.. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=elenin;orb=1;cov=1;log=0;cad=1#cad
Hi Dan, thanks for the link. What you say sounds plausible, but I haven’t seen any mention of a shower. I’ve heard the comet is intrinsically small — if it were as big as say, Hale-Bopp, a pass through its tail might happen. We’ll be hearing a lot more about Elenin in the coming weeks and months. I’ll float your comment over to some comet people I know and get back to you with their comments. I tried finding Elenin in my scope the other night, but it’s still too faint – at least for a 15-inch. Thanks for writing.
hi bob…its me dan bourgoin…ur right about the baloney on the web about x1…some r saying it niburu…which its a brown dwarf….but it was it would give off a infrared signature…
hi ; i just purchased the xt 8 inch itellscope from orion i would love to know some of your secrets … i understand a 2inch ep is the choice true/false….
Hi mjs. My secrets? I don’t keep much secret about observational astronomy. A 2-inch eyepiece for low power is a great idea. You got a great scope there. I’d pick up a 24 or 32mm wide-angle design eyepiece for a picture-window effect. That would give you a field of view big enough to fit the whole moon, a big star cluster or nice chunk of the Milky Way. Even though you have the go-to model, it’s nice to have a good star atlas on hand in case you’d like to manually find a deep sky object or planet. Remember to leave your scope (not the eyepieces!) outside before using it so it can cool down to air temp. If you bring it from a warm house to the cold outdoors, images will be soft and mushy until the mirror cools down. As far as high magnification, you typically don’t need much above 250x. Make sure you get a high power eyepiece that has enough ‘eye relief’ so it’s easy to use without gluing your eye to it. Get a safe solar filter. Watching sunspots is a blast, and since we’re in the upswing of the solar cycle, there are a lot of them. And don’t worry if you get some dust on your mirrors. They’ve really got to look nasty before your view is affected. Have fun, get out as often as possible and let us know what you’re looking at. Best of luck!
sorry i didnt respond sooner….i did purchase the 2 inch e.p. i did order the the 2 inch barlow…. lololol…anyway iam having trouble with light polution in my area plus i have no horizon it sucks. and the two star aligment has its problems because i have no horizon. i have to travel to my brothers house and its a pain draging that sucker around. anyway i only been at my brothers place once so i have nothing to compare yet.i didnt ever start to locate distance objects. iam heading in the right direction and any information would help. the views iam getting around the house are great but i need more….i lock on m109 ursa major with the 2 inch wide field nothing evernight…it gets depressing …..please help.
Hi Michael, learning to use a new scope, even if it can locate objects via the keypad, can take some time. If it has a finderscope or ‘red dot’ type finder, try using that to get comfortable with the instrument before ‘going electronic’. Pick easy stuff you can find with your eyes first like the moon, Saturn and Mizar, the double star in the bend of the handle of the Big Dipper. Stick with low power when you first point at an object. Once you’ve got it centered in the field of view, try higher magnifications.
Hi Bob. I’m a 40 year astronomy enthusiast. I only have a Tasco 450, but I use it regularly and enjoy every minute of it. The first time I saw Jupiter and her moons I cried like a baby and thanked God for putting it there. Anyhow, my question is this; where in the night sky should I be looking for Elenin? Also, do you have any idea why Google Sky, WWT, and others would black out a certain section of the universe in the Orion constellation? Thanks for your reply. Keep looking up!
S. Rayman
Hi Steven – I like that you’re primed for Comet Elenin. You’re going to have to be patient though. Right now it’s tiny and around 15.5-16.0 magnitude, well beyond the reach of your Tasco. I last searched for it with a larger scope (15-inch reflector) two weeks ago and only suspected seeing a tiny fuzzy spot. Now that the moon’s out of the sky, I’ll be back out the next clear night hoping to see it for the first time. Elenin is currently in the constellation Sextans the Sextant below the head of Leo the Lion. Once it brightens, I’ll be providing finder charts regularly.
Hi astrobob!
I love your comforting words because people are really getting into this end of the world mumbo-jumbo.
(astrobob Please respond to this)
Rayman said “Also, do you have any idea why Google Sky, WWT, and others would black out a certain section of the universe”
I’ve seen this too. What are your thoughts astrobob?
ps whens the blog coming? or how do i access it?
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Thomas
Thanks Tom for your nice e-mail. I’m not sure what you mean about part of the sky getting ‘blacked out’. Can you tell me what area is missing?
Tom, I just checked Google Sky. There are no blacked out areas. There are patches of sky where the exposure time was less than in adjacent patches, so they look darker and less starry. The other prominent dark areas are dust clouds here and there along the band of the Milky Way. Those clouds block the light of the stars beyond them.
Hi Bob, try looking here 13h 49m 25sec -8 23′ 26”
Turn on featured observations and select IRAS Infrared sky,
Now you can’t miss the blacked out area with something suspiciously bright behind it!
Also have a look here 9h 47m 27sec 13 16′ 27” what is that we see there??
Hey Paul, I checked it out and that spot looks like a missing data area from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). There’s also a much larger black swath nearby and a sprinkling of tinier spots. Why it’s missing I can’t tell you – it might be because the version of the SDSS they used wasn’t complete. That’s just a guess. That survey took years and I’m not sure it’s even finished yet. Wish I could give you a definitive answer, but I have no reason to believe anyone’s hiding anything. If you look around the infrared sky on Google Sky, you’ll see many similar, bright sources similar to the one you pointed out.
Paul, Here’s more on the missing data from an excellent website on explanations for artifacts in sky survey photos —- Missing Date: There’s actually quite a bit of missing data. With as many pieces of imagery that it takes to cover the whole sky, there are bound to be little bits here and there that get left out, and I found about a hundred or so. There is no conspiracy to hide anything from anybody, if a piece of the Google Sky imagery is missing, you can find the data in a variety of other sources, SIMBAD is my favorite external source, because it provides access to many, many other sources of astronomical imagery. But it’s also possible that the missing piece is present in Google Sky’s imagery at other wavelengths. In the “Layers”, “Featured Observatories”, you can examine a piece of Sky at InfraRed, Microwave, UV, and X-Ray wavelengths.
To read more and see examples, here’s the site: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1292281#Post1292281
The Google Sky “blacked out” area is explained here:
http://www.2012hoax.org/google-sky
There’s also a link to a video which explains it and shows how to find the missing data:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZY115vfYk
JennyJo, these are fantastic links – especially the youtube video – that explain the missing data very clearly, debunking yet another Internet hoax. Thank you!
You’re very welcome.
Dear astrobob,
How are you, I hope you are good..
I have a question; I have heard that this scientist found out that there is a comit that will pass close to earth on september 26 2011 and that it will cause earthquacks all over earth. It will also cause fires everywhere etc,,
And that the phillipenes , newzeland, some part of the usa and some other countries will dissapear from earth due to floods.
Thank you. Is this true? Could this really happen?
Amy,
It is not true and cannot and will not happen. I’m 100% sure.
How can u be 100% sure… You aren’t a profet. You have to know that the future of the world can be on your hands because you always says that nothing is gonna happen.. This can make everybody stay calm and forget the problem because they belive on what you r saying. So, stop saying that nothing will happen if u aren’t 100% SURE!
Marciano,
OK, regarding the comet I’m 99.9999999999% sure.
Lol!