Sky gazing story. Four comets coming our way The skies will be worth gazing at in the coming weeks. Remember to look up... Feeling blessed on this special day. Yesterday I had seen five comets in my whole life, but this morning I observed two new ones, with a small pair of binoculars. In fact, there are four fairly bright comets now visible in our skies, a very rare phenomenon. So I first found Sirius (Canis Major), the brightest star, and above it Procyon (Canis Minor), on the left side of which is Comet Lovejoy, a yellowish hazy dot with a short tail on its right, just above Beta Cancer. From there, moving left in the sky, I localized Regulus in Leo and below it, the red spot of Mars under which the dim streak of Comet Ison streches a faint but long tail upwards, slightly towards the left of Mars, with a bright smiling crescent Moon rising below it. Comet Encke now in Virgo is the least bright of the four at this time, barely visible with binoculars yet. So I missed it, as well as Comet Linear a bit further to the left in the sky, due to cloud covering, but will make sure to keep both eyes open now. As a reward for my sky gazing on crispy frozen ground, the Sky granted me a wonderful big blue shooting star leaving a long shining trail behind its course. The comets I saw this morning were almost or soon to be visible to the naked eye. Many comets come through our solar system every year, but the ones that we can observe with the naked eye are rare and few, and can be counted in a human life. When one observes a comet, it is usually a memorable and significant experience. So to see two comets in one night, with a possibility of seeing two more soon is an exceptional momentum that I needed to share. This brings to seven the total number of comets that I had the blessing to observe in this lifetime so far. -------------------- The previous five comets that I remember observing before are the following: Comet Kohoutek, around the turn of 1974. We watched it for a few days at sunset from our balcony. It appeared as a small bright stripe above the setting Sun. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Kohoutek Comet Halley, the most famous and studied comet, with the shortest cycle of 75 years. In 1986, it offered its worst viewing conditions in 2,000 years and appeared briefly in the winter sky as a small faint, hard to spot distant white star. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet Comet Hyakutake. spring equinox 1996: coming out of a sweat lodge that I did in the Spanish Pyrennees, it appeared just in front of the door as a long and bright blue streak pointing down. It was the fastest moving comet from the Earths point of view and could be seen moving through the stars within hours. It grew to its brightest within days and could be seen for two months. Cycle of 70,000 years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hyakutake On April 3, 1996, an amazing reddish eclipsed Moon was near Comet Hyakutake. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1996_lunar_eclipse Comet Hale-Bopp, the most observed and largest comet ever, which lasted 18 1/2 months beating the previous record of 9 months of the 1811 Great Comet. Visible from May 1996 to December 1997, it had two huge tails, shone brighter than the Moon and could be seen well before dark. It reached its peak in April 97, as I returned from France to guide a group of Europeans to Hopi and Navajo lands. Cycle estimated at 4,200 years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale–Bopp Comet Holmes was visible for about a month after its outburst on October 24, 2007, the largest comet outburst ever observed, making it brighter by a factor of half a million times. It became within days the 3rd brightest star in our skies and the largest object in our solar system. It appeared as a yellow-green star which turned brighter and blue before fading out. Discovered 1892. Cycle: 115 years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Holmes --------------- Note: Comet Linears outburst was on last October 24, it grew 200 times brighter. The rare hybrid solar eclipse on Sunday, will last 5 1/2 hours, one of the longest. The skies will be worth gazing at in the coming weeks. Remember to look up...
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 13:09:12 +0000
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