Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Comet Lovejoy

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD) has a great pic of Comet Lovejoy over Cerro Paranal, the site of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT).


The plane of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds (lower right) can easily be seen in the background.  The comet has been making quite a splash in the southern hemisphere.  It reached perihelion on Dec. 16, and is still quite bright in the southern sky.  The minimum apparent magnitude (or maximum brightness) was -3 or -4, or about 6 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.  Unfortunately, one couldn't get a good look then.  Do you know why?

The image was taken on Dec. 23, close to perihelion.  How would one estimate the size of the tail?

There's also a great time-lapse video taken over several nights from the Andes, east of Santiago, Chile.  Watch it in high-def.

1 comment:

  1. This is a 2-3 point post. Had there actually been a calculation of the length of the tail, it would have been 4-5.

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