Comet Iwamoto - See it, now or never.

Specific upcoming events: comets, meteors, supernovae, eclipses, etc.
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Apollo XX
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Comet Iwamoto - See it, now or never.

Unread post by Apollo XX »

Greetings Fellow Star Gazers,

You've probably heard about the latest bright comet to grace our skies, and that it's a speedy little sucker that won't be around long and won't be back for over a thousand years - really. I finally got a glimpse of it a few nights ago https://www.assne.org/board/viewtopic.p ... 678#p49678 and it was surprisingly good for something that is dimming so rapidly. We've probably got a little while more to see this before it abandons the neighborhood like the plague has moved in, so I've made up some charts for the upcoming nights and thought I'd share them with you. Of course if you've got go-to you can just plug in the RA and DEC and Bob's your uncle, but for the star hoppers in the group a chart is awful handy. I used the ephemeris from The Sky Live https://theskylive.com/c2018y1-info to come up with RA/DEC positions for 7:30pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all of which are forecasted to be clear and have no moon. The little target represents a star very close to the projected position of the comet, and while it may not be exact, it'll definitely be close. You shouldn't have to hunt much. If you can find M36, you're golden. Otherwise use beta Auriga to hop from.

Best of luck!

Save and print the chart for the night you want to see the comet. The file name has the date in it.

Iwamoto Feb25 730pm.png
Iwamoto Feb25 730pm.png (91.89 KiB) Viewed 4403 times
Iwamoto Feb26 730pm.png
Iwamoto Feb26 730pm.png (81.44 KiB) Viewed 4403 times
Iwamoto Feb27 730pm.png
Iwamoto Feb27 730pm.png (86.23 KiB) Viewed 4403 times
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
User avatar
Apollo XX
MSSF Coordinator
Posts: 2785
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:11 pm

Re: Comet Iwamoto - See it, now or never.

Unread post by Apollo XX »

Looks like tonight is the night, folks. Ok, the conditions as far as human comfort are concerned, well, they suck. It's cold. It's windy. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Ok, so you're not getting rich, but you're getting enriched.

Enough with the corny crap. Print the middle chart and have at it. My scope is out and come 7:30 I hope to be too.
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
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