Latest on Comet ISON - don't hold your breath...may be great...and maybe not!

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/01/comet-ison-photo-space-rock-sun_n_4192057.html

"'Downright Weird' Space Rock En Route To Sun"

"With just one month to go before its dramatic solar rendezvous, skirting to within a hairbreadth of the surface of the sun, Comet ISON continues to befuddle observers with its performance en route to the sun.

Based on a compilation of Comet ISON observations from observers worldwide as of Oct. 24, the comet, once proclaimed as possibly the "Comet of the Century" was running approximately 1.3 magnitudes, or 3.3 times fainter, than the "official" brightness forecast issued by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. As the comet comes down the home stretch of its long journey before finally grazing to within 730,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) of the sun, great uncertainty continues regarding whether or not it will remain disappointingly dim or whether it will end up evolving into a spectacularly bright object.

Carl Hergenrother of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Ariz., noted that part of the uncertainty is due to what wavelengths the comet is observed in: "Visual and CCD-V observations do show a comet that is brightening at a normal rate (perhaps even faster than normal for a dynamically new comet) while CCD-R observations show a comet that is barely brightening at all. CCD-R sees predominately dust in contrast with visual and CCD-V, which have large gas components. It seems that over the past month or so ISON's gas production rate has increased as expected while its dust production rate has not," Hergenrother said. "I don't really know what this means but something has to give, either the dust production picks up or the gas production slows down." [Photos of Comet ISON: A Potentially Great Comet]

Looking weird

The highly regarded comet observer John Bortle is just as perplexed by the comet's recent appearance, commenting that the recent images along with his own visual impression, is "downright weird." He adds that, "There is a bright, miniature, long-tailed comet situated within a much larger, but very much fainter and diffuse halo of a coma."

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Fingers crossed for something memorable and beautiful - but you never know with comets!



This is another site I use to follow comet news - http://www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html
updated weekly

[bananas]

1. cometisonnews.com is updated constantly

It's a blog, add it to your feed reader.
http://www.cometisonnews.com/

edit to add: check out his tweets https://twitter.com/cometisonnews

[Blue State Bandit]

2. Bruce Gary's observations break down the constituent parts of ISON.

He breaks it down at the link. And to those who know my views on this subject, he objective and accepted in the field. Only the facts.




http://brucegary.net/ISON/

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. thanks - will check this out later tonight