Bright New Comet in the Morning Sky

Comet Ikeya-Murakami is the latest comet to be discovered.On November the 3rd two observers discovered the comet the old fashioned way, looking through the eyepiece in a telescope. Which in this day of computers and post processing is becoming rare.

The time is now if you want to view this comet as it will not be getting any brighter as it has passed the perihelion already, but you should be able to see it fine with just binoculars but get a look in now while you can.

If you have stellarium this blog will give you the code to add the comet.
astroblogger.blogspot.com...

Two observers in Japan have independently discovered an 8th-magnitude comet, low in the eastern sky just before dawn.
It is moving in a parabolic orbit and is just past perihelion, at 1.7 astronomical units from the Sun (that is, well outside the orbit of Mars). So while this comet won't be getting any brighter in the coming weeks, it should stay within reach of binoculars as it moves slowly southeastward across Virgo.

www.skyandtelescope.com...

Here is the path it will follow.
astrosurf.com...
www.shopplaza.nl...

The best tip I can give is to look for Saturn in the low Eastern early morning sky and the comet should be just above it at the moment. It does say it should be visible with binoculars so it is worth having a look if you have a pair and are up that early.


The red cross is the location of the comet.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e65e75e69076.png[/atsimg]

For anyone not that clear on the orders of magnitude in astronomy, a +8 object is really, really not that bright.

I will be looking for it though, thanks for the info!

Here's a quote from Astroblog,

Location of Comet C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) as seen from the Northern Hemisphere on the morning of November 5, an hour before sunrise (click to embiggen).

click to embiggen... is that even a word??

reply to post by berkeleygal


Embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word.

It's funny, it is a word that was originally used in the Simpsons but it has actually managed to find it's way into a paper on String theory. So it could be that it is just a scientists sense of humour or we may now have a new word.
kottke.org...

Also I'd be interested if anyone can see this, It will be difficult for those in Europe. Guess we will have to wait for the amatures to get cracking on it.

There is a nice picture of the comet on spaceweather.com.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f0f4b8b6578a.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by pazcat


cool info & pic thanks

It's nice to see that Kaoru Ikeya is still in the comet-hunting business. He co-discovered one of the brightest comets ever, Ikeya-Seki, in 1965. Asteroid 4037 Ikeya is named in his honor.

reply to post by pazcat


Nice find. Do we know how big this comet is and how the hell it got so close without being seen?
I thought NASA had us covered..

reply to post by backinblack


I cant seem to find much information on the size of it.
It's quite common for astronomers to discover things like comets, nasa can't do everything there is still loads of stuff out there to be found I think it's more to do with your luck on the day and same goes for nasa.
Plus this one is in a tricky kind of spot, but I guess being as close as it is to Saturn it was bound to be found..