We’re more or less all done with comet McNaught up here in the North. We’ve handed it over to the Southern hemisphere viewers. That lucky lot are getting quite a show, since the comet seems to be outgassing more and producing a longer tail of debris. It is spectacular. Here is an image from New Zealand:
It was taken by Andrew Drawneek and I found ita on the SkyTonight site here, where they have a little more to say about it (including links to spotting guides), and an image gallery, to which you can submit your own images.
Enjoy!
-cvj
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aThanks Amara!
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Are you getting bored yet? It’s the end of lunchtime here, and I need to stop looking at comet pictures. I’ll leave you this page of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa. This amateur astronomy group are giving information for how to find the comet, what conditions are best for photographing the comet, a photogallery of their best pictures, and other information about this comet to the public.
ESO has a very nice Press Release describing their comet McNaught observations from Paranal, too.
Now the southern hemisphere comet McNaught photographers are getting creative!
This one is called: Contemplating the Comet by Peter Terren Bunbury Western Australia. (See THIS skytonight web page. In a similar idea, we have “watching the comet from a campsite” from Christopher Picking in Tuki Tuki, New Zealand (Gorgeous tail!) from the same skytonight web page.
Here’s a artistic black and white comet view that shows the ISS “running through” the comet. From Roberto Solans in Northwestern Patagonia, Argentina on the same skytonight web page as above.
And here is a colorful very wide-angle with lit foreground comet view from Mendonca in Pousada Caina, PR, Brazil, on the same skytonight web page as above.
Oh, there are more lovely shots, but I have to go to work, please see the many more fantastic shots on the NEXT skytonight page….!
Thanks for all the photos everyone, they are really awesome.
Spaceweather has some good photos.
And check out THIS photo with the striae from the comet tail in the zodiacal light, the Milky Way, and M31. And a meteor! From Rob Ratkowski on Maui.
He says (Sky Tonight): “I wanted to have a photo showing both the Zodiacal Light and the Milky Way. I used the 10.5mm DX Fisheye and while making exposures, I noticed a banding in the glow of the Zodiacal Light. I had read that the tail of C.McNaught might be seen near the Zodiacal Light. When I downloaded the files, I noticed that one file had a meteor and M31 also visible, I guess I got more than I bargained for.”
How’s THAT for a glorious dust tail? It doesn’t get any better that that, from the man himself. See Robert McNaught’s C2006 P1 page (recommended), at the Siding Springs Observatory.
Damn, it wasn’t that good when I saw it!
Utterly fantastic.
My favourite image is here: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070118.html
I was sad to miss seeing this one. All the good stuff keeps getting blocked by cloud cover.
Nice photo from home! Unfortunately I only have Sydney views, which have not been so good.
Nice photo! I wish I was home! Sydney doesn’t have as good a view. Even from a high vantage point there are hills in the way.