BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Comet ISON is on its way

Newly-discovered Comet ISON is headed our way and is causing a bit of buzz. Astronomers are pretty sure that it will be visible to the naked eye and from the northern hemisphere. It also has the potential to be spectactular next autumn.

But if you've been reading about this, save the excitement for later. A Sky News headline reads "Newly-Discovered Comet May Outshine The Moon". True, but it also may fail to outshine the Moon. It might even break up like Comet Elenin without any but the most dedicated having seen it at all.

Comets are notoriously unpredictable!

The comet doesn't look like much now - just a faint object in the constellation Cancer. However it is larger and its orbit is expected to take it close to the Sun next autumn.

I hope ISON doesn't fizzle like Kohoutek in 1973.

Absolutely right, Jim. Kohoutek should be a warning to anyone announcing that a spectacular comet will be gracing our skies.

But I really hope this one lives up to its promise, since it would be visible in the northern hemisphere. I'm still feeling aggrieved about Comet McNaught - the Great Comet of course, as McNaught is always finding comets.

I have only seen 3.

Ikeya-Seki in 1965
Hyakutake in 1997
Hale-Bopp in 1997

I saw both in 1997 - that was a great year for comets! I loved them both.

Comet ISON has now been picked up in good amateur telescopes with good viewing conditions, but it is still quite far away. It will be passing Mars within the month and it may be that we'll get a good view from there.

But in November, if it brightens - and, importantly, isn't destroyed as it grazes the Sun - it could be very bright indeed in November.

Or it could just fizzle out. Fingers crossed.

I loved looking at Hale-Bopp.

Oh yes, Connie, Hale-Bopp was great. None of this looking through binoculars for some vague fuzzy thing and wondering if that were the comet. When you saw Hale-Bopp that was really obviously the comet.

This seems to have been taken earlier this evening using a remote telescope on Teide, Canary Islands: Comet ISON 2013-09-09.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did get a few snaps of Comet ISON. They show the comet as smaller than expected and also not as bright as expected. This doesn't mean that it won't be a naked-eye object as it nears the Sun, but it cuts down the chances.

Astronomers around the world are getting some nice pictures of it. Here's one from Germany: Comet ISON