Comet Ison 'Looking Odd'

It isn't just casual observers or amateur astronomers that are baffled by Comet ISON but highly regarded comet observer John Bortle is perplexed over ISON’s “odd” behavior.

Via Space.com:

Bortle said 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."

Bortle has observed several hundred comets and yet, he writes, “At this stage of the game, with the comet about to cross the orbit of Earth, I cannot recall any previous comet in my 50-plus years of comet observing looking quite like this. So, what does ISON’s current look foretell, or mean? I honestly don’t know. All I can say is I don’t like the odd look of it at this time.”

"Those visual people using larger telescope also often remark about the odd way the comet looks, while those using relatively small scopes and big binoculars report seeing a larger, more-or-less faint but uniform cometary mass," he added. "This comet is currently at a distance from the sun where it should no longer exhibit such a dichotomy of appearance.”

Around Oct. 19, ISON seemed to suddenly brighten at a more rapid pace. On Oct. 21, Arizona observer Bruce Gary wrote, "The comet (coma plus tail) continues a dramatic brightening trend that started Oct 19. But just four days later, with the comet showing signs of fading a bit rather than brightening, Gary, sounding almost a bit exasperated commented, "I don't know what's going on with this comet!"

Another expert Carl Hergenrother of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Ariz., reiterates the weirdness of ISON, “Visual and CCD-V observations do show a comet that is brightening at a normal rate, 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.”

Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.

Expert after expert notice the anomalies, yet the general public should just trust NASA and the government’s assertions?

Link

Another link

Here is a video with an update about Ison:


Have we any astronomers on ATS who is finding Comet Ison a bit weird of late?

This bit in the Huffington Post made me read it twice

Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.

reply to post by skyblueworld

yet the general public should just trust NASA and the government’s assertions?

What are their assertions, exactly?

reply to post by AlphaHawk


Link

It was this sites words, I should of quoted it, doh!

We don't hear from them lately though do we...

reply to post by skyblueworld


I'm just confused how one can trust or distrust an assertion that hasn't even been made..

Just writing to check back later when some discussion has been posted. I too would like to see what any of the seasoned astronomers of ATS have to say about ison. Perhaps it's time for me to dust off the old telescope!

skyblueworld
reply to post by AlphaHawk

 

Link

It was this sites words, I should of quoted it, doh!

We don't hear from them lately though do we...

edit on 2-11-2013 by skyblueworld because: (no reason given)

But is NASA really studying ISON a great deal? Isn't most comet instigation/discovery usually done by other organizations and very-well-equipped amateur astronomers? NASA (very occasionally) uses its equipment to gather data on a comet, but that's usually data given out to other non-NASA astronomers.

For the most part, NASA scientists traditionally don't get deeply into comet investigation and discovery (although STEREO incidentally discovers sungrazers). It's not really what they do. I haven't been expecting a lot of intense scientific scrutiny of ISON from NASA; they usually let the comet hunters do that.

reply to post by skyblueworld


S&F... Thanks for sharing this OP

skyblueworld

Expert after expert notice the anomalies, yet the general public should just trust NASA and the government’s assertions?

Something that many people may not grasp or comprehend; NASA isn't the be all, end all, totality of the Astronomical community.
Nor is it the Astronomy police.

One of the tenants of Science is corroboration of data from as many sources as available.
The OP article would appear to support that in citing the observations of many differing sources.

Is the quote above indication of a feeling that NASA has some magical ability to see something different than every other eyeball on the planet that's taking a close look can't?

NASA might command a wealth of hardware, but, by no means does it have any magical abilities to see anything different than some other observers who've quite likely made observations using reserved time slots on some of the same NASA equipment NASA would use to make the same observations.

I'm actually very excited to see ison ...if I can see it when it comes by! All I have been reading for awhile now is how oddly shaped this comment is. Now there's another comet inside of a comet? Is that what read? Or is my hangover kicking my butt and I misunderstood?

reply to post by skyblueworld


I have been waiting for NASA's stereo observations and there are none?
stero-comit ison

Has any one found any stereo images?

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


You're probably right, but they did have a Deep Space Comet Hunter mission which recently came to an end:
Link

They also have Hubble, and they have a website called Asteroid and Comet watch:
Link

They also have a Near Earth Object Program.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

It's not really what they do. I haven't been expecting a lot of intense scientific scrutiny of ISON from NASA; they usually let the comet hunters do that.

Well they have had a mission specifically designed for in depth observing of comet ISON, but unexpectedly their equipment failed to respond couple of hours after balloon was launched.
I guess that's the reason we don't hear much from NASA about ISON.

FORT SUMNER, N.M.—The Balloon Rapid Response for ISON (BRRISON) payload suffered an anomaly following launch Sept. 28 from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, N.M., preventing the payload from collecting mission data.
Approximately two and a half hours after BRRISON’s launch, the 0.8-meter telescope on the gondola returned to a stowed position too rapidly, driving the telescope past a stow latch. The telescope was unable to be redeployed despite numerous attempts by the BRRISON team from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which built BRRISON for NASA.
An Interim Response Team will assess the BRRISON payload during recovery operations later today.
BRRISON was launched to study the rare sun-grazing Oort Cloud Comet ISON and other objects with both infrared and ultraviolet/visible light instruments.

Source

NASA gets way too much credit around here. The majority of objects discovered, are discovered by amateur/private astronomers. The NEO project is funded in part by NASA, but not entirely.

"OMG! NASA WOULD NEVER TELL US IF A (insert space object here) WAS COMING TO KILL US! NEVER A STRAIGHT ANSWER!"

Maybe they wouldn't... BUT... the thousands of sky-watchers around the world would. As soon as it was confirmed and cross referenced, we would know about it.

I'm not at all surprised that ISON isn't behaving the way the textbooks say she should. I doubt she's read any of them.

reply to post by daryllyn


Hmmm, só ISON is a SHE. I bet she will be stuning in her blue dress

reply to post by skyblueworld


So if ISON is more of a solid body could it be an asteroid with a covering that's torn off in the solar wind? Does this happen to some first time round the sun asteroids? An interesting thread, thanks for putting it up OP.

reply to post by donlashway


I can't find any either, yet according to this we should of had observations of it since October 10th!
Link

Meldionne1
I'm actually very excited to see ison ...if I can see it when it comes by! All I have been reading for awhile now is how oddly shaped this comment is. Now there's another comet inside of a comet? Is that what read? Or is my hangover kicking my butt and I misunderstood?

Far too mundane.

It's a plot, that is no comet, it's a hijacked rock and the ship is using it to get close as we think it's going to pass on by, but out of the blue!! Whammo! Aliens.

We're done for.

december 21'st I rekon. hmm.. maybe 22'nd..

On the other hand, it could be a crazy comet and have a bizarre shape causing things we've not had the chance to see yet.

I hope for the aliens, I know it'll be funky shaped, but I'm still distantly excited about it.

reply to post by skyblueworld

This bit in the Huffington Post made me read it twice

Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.

I'll see your

and raise you 2 .

Seriously, if true that has a lot of implications and will energize a few different camps in the doomporn arena...

We obviously need more information/data.

Actually, scratch that. We're drowning in data, but starving for knowledge.

reply to post by Riffrafter

We obviously need more information/data.

Actually, scratch that. We're drowning in data, but starving for knowledge.

YES. I want to repeatedly star you for that comment.

Knowledge on how to interpret the data would be helpful in lessening some of the doom porn.

I'd go for it being more of a big metallic rock, and less of a comet.