Home > Comet, Ephemeris Program > 10/02/2012 – Ephemeris – Two bright comets next year, maybe?

10/02/2012 – Ephemeris – Two bright comets next year, maybe?

October 2, 2012

Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 2nd.  The sun will rise at 7:42.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 38 minutes, setting at 7:20.   The moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 8:23 this evening.

It looks like we’ll have possibly two comets to grace our skies next year.  These are first time comets and there is trouble with predicting their brightness.  We can make a guess when we see them far from the sun, but that doesn’t always pan out.  The first comet to be seen will be Comet 201l L4, named PANSTARRS.  It will reach its closest to the sun on April 17th.  It was discovered with the Pan-STARRS telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii.  It could optimistically be as bright as the star Vega.   The second was Comet 2012 S1 ISON (I hope that’s how it’s pronounced) discovered on September 21st, 10 days ago.  This comet has the added problem.  On November 29th, 2013 it will pass a million miles from the center of the sun, and may not survive.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Here’s some information on these comets from Gary Kronk’s Cometography:  http://cometography.com/current_comets.html

 

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