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RE: Catching Comet Wirtanen this December
Great read Terry 😊
I hope to have a clear sky in middle of December, so that I could get some shots of Comet Wirtanen.
Great read Terry 😊
I hope to have a clear sky in middle of December, so that I could get some shots of Comet Wirtanen.
Thanks, Kevin, fingers crossed for clear skies! There is also some suggestion that there might some interesting dust-tail features caused by favorable viewing geometry in December, however, I am not sure the comet produces enough dust for this to eventuate.
Thank you Terry :-)
I am very curious about his appearance. But also if I can do it. That would be the first attempt with Goto tracking on a comet. I should be able to get the coordinates from planetarium software. However, I don't know where I can get the speed to the tracking rate. Do you have a tip for me?
Hi Kevin, try JPL Horizons which can output RA and Dec rates for you. But to save you time I ran it for December and here are the rates in arc sec per hour.
Thank you so much Terry :-)
I will also try to use the website. Thanks a lot for the table, it will save me a lot of mistakes and time :-)
Seconded. Would be lucky recognizing it though.. Not sure how they see the stars differently, they all look alike to me.
It takes a little bit of practice to get familiar with the constellations :) I did see the comet last night in my 8" reflecting telescope, but I "cheated" by entering the comet's coordinates into the telescopes mount and there it was!