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11/04/10 – Ephemeris – Comet Hartley Intercept
Thursday, November 4th.* The sun will rise at 8:24. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 6:27. The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 7:52 tomorrow morning.
The Deep Impact spacecraft, which witnessed the impact of its Impactor into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 has been redirected to Comet Hartley 2. At 10:01 this morning it will pass its closest to that comet at 434 miles. This is the EPOXI mission, the retargeting of the spacecraft to a new comet. The Arecibo radio telescope on Puerto Rico has already reached out and touched the Nucleus of Comet Hartley 2 and has released its images, showing the nucleus to be a skinny bowling pin shape a bit less than a mile and a half long and tumbling slowly at a rate of 13 to 18 hours. The spacecraft will be positioned to protect itself from the escaping particles of the comet and to photograph the comet, so will not have its antenna pointed to the earth until after the encounter.
Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
10/04/10 – Ephemeris – Comet Hartley 2
Monday, October 4th. The sun will rise at 7:43. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 7:17. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:02 tomorrow morning.
Comet 103P/Hartley 2 is visible all night, but it’s visible only in binoculars or a small telescope It’s cruising past the W shaped constellation of Cassiopeia in the northeast in the evening. Looking at the W in the evening it’s standing on one end, and looks like the number 3. The comet is moving down just to the right of it. Since it is seen against the Milky Way there are some other fuzzy spots to confuse you. The comet will stay fuzzy in a telescope. Discovered in 1986 by Malcolm Hartley in Australia, the comet has a 6 and a half year orbit of the sun. It will be closest to the earth on October 20th. The Deep Impact spacecraft renamed EPOXI will pass close to the half mile diameter nucleus on November 4th.
Times are for the Grand Traverse Area of Northern Michigan, USA.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 