Comet C/2011 L4 (Pan-STARRS): path across the stars
C/2011 L4 (Pan-STARRS): star chart Comet C/2011 L4 (Pan-STARSS has reasonable chances to become a nice comet next March 2013. The map above shows its path across the stars from 1 March to 1...
Category: comets
Comet C/2012 S1 Ison: 11 Jan. 2013
Comet C/2012 S1 Ison Comet C/2012 S1 “Ison” continues its trip around the Sun, slowly approaching it, while professional and hobby astronomers hope it will match all its promises, becoming very bright by the...
Comet C/2012 S1 Ison: 20 Dec. 2012
Discovered on 21 Sept. 2012, comet C/2012 S1 showed a great potential since the very beginning. Late on Now. 2013 it will reach a minimum distance from the Sun of 1.2 millions of km. If...
Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear): finding chart (1 to 9 Jan. 2013)
As comet C/2012 K5 is still a nice view with a pair of binoculars and because it is now crossing very nice star fields across the winter constellations, we provide here an updated version...
Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear): finding chart
Comet C/2012 K5 was discovered on 28 May 2012 by the Linear automated survey, New Mexico (USA). It is getting a bit closer to the Earth and will reach a minimum distance of about...
Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear): a Christmas’ gift
While Christmas is definitely in the air, comet C/2012 K5 is putting a nice show over there. Nothing bright, unfortunately, but something you can still enjoy with a small telescope or image with a...
Comet 168P/Hergenrother: hi-res image (24 Oct. 2012)
This image of comet 168P/Hergenrother was obtained under excellent seeing conditions, between 1.3″ and 1.5″. More than 100 single frames were averaged, avoiding stellar contamination. More details are on the final image above. Images...
Comet 168P/Hergenrother: hi-res image (23 Oct. 2012)
Comet 168P/Hergenrother is still closely monitored at the Virtual Telescope, after our previous very interesting views of this object . On Oct. 23, with a good seeing of 1.6″, several images were collected, using a short...
Comet C/2012 S1 Ison: 23 Oct. 2012
Discovered on 21 Sept. 2012, comet C/2012 S1 showed a great potential since the very beginning. Late on Now. 2013 it will reach a minimum distance from the Sun of 1.2 millions of km....
Comet 168P/Hergenrother: hi-res images (19 Oct. 2012)
On 19 Oct. 2012, while observing comet 168P/Hergenrother, I noticed that its inner coma had a very interesting aspect, showing the false nucleus and an apparent secondary dust concentration. The latter feature was visible on...
Comet 168/P Hergenrother: 12 Oct. 2012
Comet 168P/Hergenrother was discovered in 1998 and recovered in 2005. During its 2012 apparition, early in Oct. 2012, the comet experimented an outburst, increasing its brightness of about 500 times, becoming quite bright to...
C/2009 P1 (Garradd) and M 15
This image shows comet Garradd while apparently meeting the globular cluster Messier 15 in Pegasus, on 2 Aug. 2011. A mosaic with two images was done, in order to cover both the objects, still...
Comet C/2009 R1 (McNaught)
Comet C/2009 R1 has been a very interesting object in June 2010, when it reached a nice brightness, becoming visible to the naked eye. This image is a deep view on this comet, captured...
Comet 103P/Hartley 2
Comet 103P/Hartley 2 has been a very important target, when in Nov. 2010 it had a flyby with the Deep Impact spacecraft, as part of the EPOXI mission. This image is a deep...
