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New Comet for the New Year 126

Posted by michael from the up-up-and-away dept.
spac3manspiff writes "The news has several stories about a fairly new comet named Comet Machholz discovered by Don Machholz. The comet will be able to be seen in the sky on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 or Jan. 5 through 8. Along with the comet's appearance: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all be able to be seen with a naked eye this month. However, you will need binoculars to see the comet."
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New Comet for the New Year More

New Comet for the New Year

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  • RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 01, 2005 @05:43PM (#11235136)
    Not even the submitters seem to RTFA anymore. The article clearly states This comet currently is glowing at around magnitude 3.5 and is visible to the naked eye in dark, non-light polluted skies. I.e. the "you need a binoc to see it" it utter BS.

    • Re:RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)

      by chascarrillo ( 584837 )
      Since most of us are living in quite light polluted areas, I think the submitter is essentially correct if a bit wrong on the technical aspects. No harm, no foul.
    • i'm not a grammar nazi but a *cough* news site *cough* would be emberassed by this...

      The comet will be able to be seen in the sky

      • Re:RTFA (Score:3, Funny)

        by neil.pearce ( 53830 )
        I'm not a grammar Nazi either, but am embarrassed by your spelling of "emberassed" and "nazi"
        • ... embarrassed by your spelling ...

          Hey, c'mon; he was just following the old rule that any spelling or grammar flame will contain a mispeling or a grammer eror.

          Of course; his really was neither; it was just commenting on a spectacularly awkward bit of phraseology. But the principle still applies.

    • Re:RTFA (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Almost-Retired ( 637760 )
      Yeah, well, here in the good ol Hew Ess Aye, West Virginia to be exact, its too damned overcast to see anything tonight.

      Besides I wasn't gonna stand out there in my bvd's for very long, I've got a cold & miserable.

      But, if it was clear, I'd sure have my 7x35's out to take a look, it seems that the huge majority of the so-called naked eye comets have coincided with mostly overcast skys for the last 20 years.

      Its a crying shame when man can't see off the planet he was born on, and its man thats responsib
    • I wonder how it will compare to Hyukatake ('96?) I remember "holy shit" feeling of awe I got one winter night when I looked up at the sky in my rural front yard--absolutely incredible.

      • Re:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)

        by JetJaguar ( 1539 )
        Unfortunately, it won't. Hyakutake made a fairly close pass at earth, and hence put on a pretty good show. Macholz will be over 1/2 an AU away at it's closest, and from the data I've seen so far, it looks like it's a fairly small comet. There's just not enough surface area to allow the kind of sublimation needed for the comet to become bright (although that does not rule out some kind of outburst occuring). Also, this comet is nearly at opposition when it will be at it's brightest, meaning that the earth

    • Comet magnitudes (as well as galaxies and nebulae) are integrated magnitudes. That is, the magnitude measurement comes from integrating the light over the entire "surface" of the object. The magnitude is calculated from the total amount of light gathered from the object over the entire area of the sky that the object occupies.

      In other words, those 3.5 magnitudes are spread out over the entire "surface" of the comet, as opposed to a 3.5 magnitude star, in which the light is almost perfectly concentrated i

  • See what? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All I see is clouds and falling snow.
  • Well, I *just* got a pair of binoculars for Christmas.

    I read TFA, but I have no idea where to look for this thing. Does anyone know where to look, say, if you live in upstate New York?

  • Article got it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zathras26 ( 763537 ) <pianodwarf&gmail,com> on Saturday January 01, 2005 @05:52PM (#11235175)
    ...the Machholz Comet is named after the guy who really discovered it. Bob Comet.

  • Map (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikeboone ( 163222 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @05:55PM (#11235192) Homepage Journal
    SpaceWeather [spaceweather.com] has a spotting map [spaceweather.com]. Should be easy to spot if you can find Orion and the Pleiades.

    • Re:Map (Score:5, Informative)

      by jwdb ( 526327 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @06:10PM (#11235256)
      If I may, I'd suggest these maps - a bit more detail:

      http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/charts.html [nasa.gov]

      Jw

    • Re:Map (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Zoinks ( 20480 )
      I just happened to be out looking at this comet and what do you know, /. has an article about it when I came back inside.

      I found it pretty quickly from the guide in Sky and Telescope, although the suggested spotting map will work just fine, too. I used a pair of 10x30 binocs and spotted it almost instantly. Took me another minute to make sure I wasn't looking at some other nebula. My non-techie wife was able to spot it just about as quickly - said it kind of pops out at you as you scan the heavens in th

  • kstars (Score:5, Informative)

    by rimu guy ( 665008 ) * on Saturday January 01, 2005 @05:59PM (#11235211) Homepage

    If you need to figure out where in the sky those planets are, try kstars [kde.org]. It is one of the better planetarium-type apps out there.

    Now if only the 'summer' skies over New Zealand would clear for a night, I can actually make use of my shiny new telescope [astronomy.co.nz].

    --
    Stellar Linux VPS Hosting [rimuhosting.com]

    • I personally like Stellarium [stellarium.free.fr]. It may not be as comprehensive, but is available for Windows and OS X, as well as Linux. Not to mention it has pretty constellation art, looks very nice as a whole, and is quite easy to use. It is GPL'd too.

      "Stellarium is a free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time with openGL. It is available for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. With Stellarium, you really see what you can see with your eyes, binoculars or a small telescope."

  • Aw man, not again. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Clueless Moron ( 548336 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @05:59PM (#11235215)
    I hate these "naked eye" events. I love astronomy, but I'm frankly embarrassed about having to stand out in my yard buck naked just to look at a comet or meteor shower. My neighbours all think I'm a freak.

    Could somebody please explain to me why I have to be naked to view these things? It's especially nasty now in January.

  • How to see it (Score:5, Informative)

    by goober ( 120298 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @06:08PM (#11235246)

    It is these types of comets that frustrate people who are interested in astronomy but don't know where to look.

    You will not see it with the naked eye unless you are under very dark skies away from city lights. You will have more luck with binoculars and even then it will only appear as a dim smudge of light.

    Finding it in the sky will be an exercise in frustration unless you are already comfortable orienteering the night sky. Your best bet will be on January 8th, when the comet will be just to the right of the Pleiades, an easily locatable star cluster in Taurus.

    This page [skyandtelescope.com] at Sky & Telescope has a decent finder map. Happy hunting and even if you don't see it, enjoy the night air. It's good for you...

  • So the comet gets 2 days off.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @06:24PM (#11235316)
    The comet will be able to be seen in the sky on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 or Jan. 5 through 8.

    What a bogus statement! The comet does not thake a few days off, it's going to be just as visable on January 3rd and 4th as on January 2nd and January 5th. There's a nice chart here [skyandtelescope.com] that shows where in the sky to expect it each night.

    • The comet does not thake a few days off, it's going to be just as visable on January 3rd and 4th as on January 2nd and January 5th.

      Well, unless it's supposed to be overcast on the 3rd and 4th, anyhow.

      (Here, the comet's gonna be a few days late in arriving for that reason. Le sigh.)

    • Re:So the comet gets 2 days off.... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nope, the moon is in the way during late 2nd to mid 5th. So... not bogus at all, sorry.

      • Re:So the comet gets 2 days off.... (Score:4, Informative)

        by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @08:45PM (#11235762)
        I hate to respond to a AC, but just in case anyone was stupid enough to believe you: The moon is in Virgo the two days in question (3rd and 4th). In fact, it's moving away from the comet each day and approaching being a new moon, so viewing based on the moon will be better on the 3rd and 4th than on the 1st and 2nd. And, from the Sky and Telescope atrticle: "Around the 16th, moonlight again begins to seriously intrude.", which marks the first impact this year that the moon will have on the viewing.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Thoughts for observing (Score:5, Informative)

    by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @06:28PM (#11235329) Journal

    The news has several stories about a fairly new comet named Comet Machholz discovered by Don Machholz.

    It's been quite bright (for a comet) in southern hemisphere skies for about a month now, and it's certainly worth going out to look at. I went out to look at it (from where I live in New Zealand) on December 11th. It was very easy to find in binoculars then (although I'm an amateur astronomer)... that was about mag 5.5. I haven't had a chance to see it since then because of bad weather.

    If it's approaching mag 3.5 as the article suggests, it's getting very bright for a comet. If you're in reasonably unpolluted skies and know where to look, you might see it with an unaided eye. If you can't, though, you could probably see it in binoculars at least from low-lit suburban areas if you keep away from glare. Look with binoculars anyway, if you can, and you'll see a lot more. Frequently a reasonable pair of binoculars will reveal a lot more than a toy department store telescope.

    If you're not sure where to look, keep in mind that you may also be able to contact a local observatory or astronomical society, and ask if they're having any open nights where you can have a look at it.

    Don't expect anything really spectacular, of course. Most comets are a smudge on the background of the sky. Give your eyes time to adjust to what you're seeing, too. Like most thinks in amateur astronomy, you see more for the longer that you look at them. If you watch the comet over several nights, you may also see the appearence change quite a lot.

    The linked yahoo article is quite misleading when it mentions brightness. It states that it's possible to see down to mag 6.5 in the most unpolluted skies. I think the author is confusing the difference between point sources of light, such as stars, and other sources. Comets are diffuse objects, and the comet magnitude describes the total amount of light that the surface emits. For this reason, a comet will appear significantly fainter than a star of the same magnitude. The exact difference depends on just how diffuse the comet is. Keep in mind, though, that even though it's bright, it's unlikely to leap out at you.

  • I have not seen a celestial event as cool as the Hale Bopp comet.

    That was truly amazing.

    The Comet Machholz must not be too big because no "Heaven's Gate Type Cult" has been found dead with Nikes on their feet and cyanide laced lips yet!

    • The most striking thing about that cult was how they made their living. They were paying the rent on a large group home in Rancho Santa Fe and wearing Nikes and all they did was slap together crappy HTML templates for local businesses. Consider that Manson et al were forced to live in low rent districts of southern CA like Death Valley, and got all their food from dumpster diving at supermarkets. If you're in a cult and needing a source of cash but not wanting to call attention to yourself, computer work is

    • I remember watching the re-release of Star Wars at the local drive-in theater in a convertible with the top down. The normal evening overcast (I'm on the US West Coast) formed a strange hole over the area through which I could see lots of stars and a rather bright Hale-Bopp.

      That was a very intense evening, watching space-fantasy on the big screen and space-reality on the *really* big screen...

  • ...have better odds than 1 in 56,000 [slashdot.org] of killing us?

    Anyone for "I survived 1/1/2005" underwear?

  • A seriously humble guy: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Artifakt ( 700173 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @06:50PM (#11235397)
    This is the 10th comet found by Don Macholz, and only now has he hung his name on one? If this one isn't really Macholz 10, I'd love to know who he named the first nine after.
    • Whoops! That's machholz, two h's. Sorry!
    • Sorry to disappoint you, but all his previous comets have carried his name. In fact, he gets no choice in the matter ( e.g. he cannot on a whim decide to give the name 'Comet Peachwrack' ).

      Comets are always named after their discoverer(s).

      1991 XII Machholz
      1978l Machholz
      1985e Machholz
      1986e Machholz
      1988j Machholz
      1992d Tanaka-Machholz
      1992k Machholz
      1994m Nakamura-Nishimura-Machholz
      1994o Machholz
      1994r Machholz
      C/2004 Q2 Machholz
      • The naming process really doesn't disappoint me. The commission allowed asteroid discoverers to assign names within certain limits, and ended up with a huge number of odd female names like Swedenborgia stuck on asteroids.
        What I was poking a bit of fun at, is the press coverage of Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter got the "9" part right, and most of the coverage of this event (including here on /.) has missed giving the full name of the comet or the count of how many Don Machholz has discovered, or for th

  • What are the odds? (Score:5, Funny)

    by burtonator ( 70115 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @07:21PM (#11235488)
    ... fairly new comet named Comet Machholz discovered by Don Machholz.

    Wow! What are the odds that the guy would discover a commet which has his same last name! Amazing.

    And its not like Machholz is a popular last name among commets either!

  • To see Machholz* (Score:2, Informative)

    by kulakovich ( 580584 )
    In very basic terms -

    - face south

    - point your arm up at 11 o'clock

    There is a cluster of stars, the Pleiades.

    -- a little beneath that, to the left, is a "triangle" of stars, much more spaced out than the Pleiades. This is Taurus**.

    The Pleiades, Taurus and Machholz make an almost perfect triangle - Machholz being the bottom right point.

    It will be smudge-like, like a little cloud.

    kulakovich


    * I'm in North America, you insensitive clod!

    ** yes, one appears to be a "double" star. ~ six stars total inc
    • If its clear tonight (like it is here in New Hampshire) - you owe it to yourself to check this out. Like kulakovich points out, find Pleiades (up and to the right of Orion). You will be looking south, and almost straight up. Move your eyes down and to the left, there is a bright star/planet that appears a bit red. Go in a straight line to the right from there - and there are two stars. The first one is almost directly under Pleiades. The next one to the right is the Machholz planet. It looks fuzzy to
    • at present it's quite dull.. i didn't have terribly good viewing conditions and only one side of a 10x50 binocular but it was very "smudge"

      how much better is it going to get as it nears the pleiades?
      • It was pretty smudgy here as well. I dragged the camera and tripod out though and grabbed a few shots. Hopefully they will be a bit clearer than my binocs. (100 asa film, 30 secs F4 200mm lens should do it..) ..d
  • Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all be able to be seen with a naked eye this month.

    You forgot Earth. :)

  • Tens of thousands of /. geeks will now rush to check out teh new comet, sending it up in a puff of vapor. Oh, wait a minute...
  • Historically comets have been considered a sign of doom. Whenever they arrived they brought destruction and death. This time when Maccholz comes closer to earth, we see tsunamis kill thousands of people. Is this still a coincidence?
  • Not being serious, but it is kinda cool that we have a comet on the first day of the new year. The guys in medeival times would be freaking out probably.
  • I'm not even an amateur astronomer, and I was able to easily find this comet and view it with my inexpensive 10x binoculars. Now that I know where to look I can see it out without the binoculars (kind of like a fuzzy star), but it was easier to first find it with them. With the binoculars I can clearly see the coma. It appears about as long as it is wide.

    If you can find the Seven Sisters and Orion then you can easily find the comet relative to them.

    Dan East
  • if we see the cult group from the 90's, heaven's gate, on that comet, then ill be damned that their religion was the right one...
  • Here in Gold Coast AU, this comet is entirely unimpressive in my 120mm refractor. Kind of like a diffuse ball of light with a slightly brighter center. Believe me if you miss this "naked eye" comet, don't lose any sleep !

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