Comet Lulin is approaching us! It’s approaching us! I’ve never been such excited blogging here!

On 24 Feb 2009, Comet Lulin is going to pass the Earth by just 60.8 million km. Could you imagine that? At apogee (farthest), the Moon is 0.4 million km from us. Check out the sky map below to look out the comet!

Click to enlarge

Many have already been out at the backyard busy imaging the great comet. The gallery at SpaceWeather.com is growing faster and faster when the day comes close to 24 Feb. Comet Lulin is a green tinted comet. You will see it as a greenish patch on the southern sky. The telescope will show you even more. From some degree, the comet even looks like a sword with its tail and anti-tail.

What if you’re going to miss the show due to the weather? No worry, Coca-Cola Space Science Center is going to broadcast the view through their 16″ Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. It starts at 1530 GMT on 23rd Feb 2009 until 1000 GMT on 24th Feb.

Comet Lulin is a great discovery with the collaboration of Chinese and Taiwanese. More story later, the comet is drawing my attention.

First, it’s the Quandrantid meteor shower. The radiant is near to the Draco’s head. In a simpler way, the radiant is at the NE. For us in Malaysia, it’s close to the horizon before dawn. Its ZHR is 100 and peaks at 3pm on 4 January 2008. The wanning crescent, 25 days old moon will not interfere this shower. Even though its great ZHR and no moonlight interference, we still can’t get a very good view because of the extremely low radiant.

Comet 8P/Tuttle Close Encountered with M33

Secondly, it’s the Comet 8P/Tuttle which is closest to us during 1-2 January 2008 at 38.4 million km. It was having its very close encounter with the Triangulum Galaxy – M33 on 30 Dec 07 to 1 Jan 08, a great new year photo opportunity. Its green colour atmosphere is comprised of Cyanogen (CN) and diatomic carbon (C₂). When they’re exposed to the UV sunlight, they show emerald-green glow.

Thirdly, this may be the most interesting event throughout the 2008. The asteroid codenamed 2007 WD₅ will HIT the Mars. The odd of the collision is 4% at the moment. I hope planetary scientist can refine its orbit data and possibly the odd will be increased. We are able to get a fine model of the impact of an asteroid to a rocky planet. Hopefully, if Earth is the victim many years later, we’re able to defend it.

Comet 17P/Holmes gives us surprise again. The comet’s tail disconnected from the nucleus. It’s believed to be caused by gusts the solar wind which trigger magnetic storms around the comet. This phenomena is not rare, it happened on Comet Encke earlier this year.

Amateur astronomers are monitoring this comet each night. What about you? Since my last observation, the sky has been cloudy until now.

Below is the direct quote from SpaceWeather.com regarding the satellite of Holmes.

DOES COMET HOLMES HAVE A SATELLITE? Comet Holmes has erupted twice before, in Nov. 1892 and Jan. 1893. In 1984, great astronomer Fred Whipple proposed an explanation:

“An analysis of observations of comet P/Holmes 1892III’s two 8-10 mag bursts indicates that these phenomena are consistent with the grazing encounter of a small satellite with the nucleus on November 4.6, 1892, and the final encounter on January 16.3, 1893. While after the first burst the total magnitude fell less than 2 mag from November 7 to 30, the fading was much more rapid after the second burst. It is suggested that the grazing encounter distributed a volume of large chunks in the neighborhood of the nucleus, maintaining activity for weeks.” Source: Icarus (ISSN 0019-1035), vol. 60, Dec. 1984, p. 522-531.

Whipple’s idea might be updated circa 2007 to include a swarm of orbiting debris produced by, say, a previous collision. From time to time a debris-fragment might hit the comet’s nucleus causing a new outburst. It’s possible: Asteroids have satellites, so why not comets? Furthermore, fragments going around a comet’s irregular nucleus would have unstable orbits; from time to time they would naturally crash into the comet or fly off into space.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the comet last night. Although the clouds are still there, I could still easily spot it by its “nebulosity”. I found that the telescopic view (8″ LX90 2000mm) was more spectacular than the the binocular (Meade 9×63mm). If you had watched Armageddon, you would quickly recognize the comet as the asteroid in the movie. It looks so threatening to us but it’s not going to collide with us. So, NASA doesn’t have to send Bruce Willis to drill a hole there.

All right, good weather is gone again. Let’s hope the sky will clear soon.

Comet Holmes 17P is getting bigger and bigger. At the same distance as of Jupiter, it’s now bigger than it. Imagine! It was at magnitude 2.3th measured by Dr.Clay on 28 Oct 2007. It was 255 arc seconds across on the same time. If you are interested in the photometry result, you may refer to COMET OUTBURST: Comet 17P Holmes More facts below…

It bursted once before in 7 Nov 1892 that led to the discovery by Edwin Holmes, the british astronomer. Where to look? Look to north for a fuzzy star, at this magnitude with such special feature, it should be easy to recognize. For a detailed sky map, please go to SpaceWeather.com (I haven’t been granted the permission to use the sky map.)

Nobody has a reason to miss this comet, you don’t have one either. Watch out for it! I am seeking for a chance to image. Yesterday, I was just too thrilled for fixing the guiding performance of my LX90 and focus only on the moon… Now, I regret.