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Comets

Does anyone know if this has some sort of SRiMech (Self Righting Mechanism) built in?

Or are they just using the existing moving parts to try and tip it back the right way up?
 
One idea they had was to spin up the gyroscope; this may have been enough to right it. But that would take a large fraction of the meagre amount of available power.
 
Philae comet lander: Sleep well little probe

European Space Agency controllers will not give up on Philae.
They will continue to listen for the little probe in the days ahead, hopeful that it will somehow become active again.
On each pass overhead, the Rosetta satellite will try to detect and lock on to any sort of blip being transmitted from below.

...

The robot delivered almost 100% of its primary goals, returning the first-ever pictures and other science data from the surface of a comet.
And it has been a blast. This past week's events really caught the world's attention.

So how about we do it again? This is the dream certainly of many who control Philae's mothership, Rosetta.
It will continue to orbit and observe 67P for at least another year, but after that there is a desire to put the satellite on the surface of the comet as well.

"I would like to land on the surface of the comet with the full spacecraft - definitely," says European Space Agency flight director Andrea Accomazzo.
"In the end, we can design an approach trajectory to the comet. We just slow down the spacecraft and it falls on to the comet.
"The touchdown will not be as soft as the lander. There's no landing gear; the spacecraft would be mechanically damaged. But we can do it."

And Paolo Ferri, Esa's head of mission operations, added: "We would plan such a manoeuvre so that we could follow Rosetta down to the surface. But once it touches down, we cannot control anymore the attitude. So, the antenna will not be pointing to the right direction.
"We would lose the contact when it touches down, but we would still be able to control it down to the last metre, to get signal, measurements and pictures. It would be spectacular. That's the right way to die." 8)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30062346
 
I was bumbling about on a news article about Philae, and a commenter posted a link to an animation of Rosetta's 10 year trek to get this far. It really put the whole thing into perspective for me and made me appreciate just how much planning has gone into the whole thing. There really is something awe-inspiring about the mission.

Worth a look - and you can zoom in and change the angle of view which is quite cool! 8)
 
Zoffre said:
I was bumbling about on a news article about Philae, and a commenter posted a link to an animation of Rosetta's 10 year trek to get this far.
Click to expand...
I'd like to see that, but it just freezes IE, and Firefox gives it a go before telling me I need to install some extra widget... :(

Meanwhile, pics of the famous Bounce:

Comet lander: First pictures of Philae 'bounce' released

Images of the Philae probe moments after its initial touchdown have been published by the European Space Agency.
There was a nerve-wracking wait after the solar-powered Philae lander bounced a mile back into space following its first contact with comet 67P.
It successfully landed a few minutes later, over half a mile away from its intended spot.

Now the European Space Agency reports pictures of the tool on its rebound have been identified.
The photographs were unveiled on the Esa's Rosetta Blog, showing a few pale pixels - thought to be Philae - accompanied by a dark patch, which experts conclude is its shadow.

Observers from the agency's flight dynamics team spent hours analysing and reviewing the footage before their conclusion was made public.
Philae has been returning pictures and other data to earth via the Rosetta satellite, but until now scientists have not had access to images of the probe itself after landing.

The difficult landing damaged the craft and its current location means the battery that powers it may not be able to recharge.
It is currently in stand-by mode after running out of power but before that happened engineers attempted to maximise the possibility of recharging its power supply by sending a command to reposition the lander.
This involved raising Philae by 4cm and rotating its main housing by 35% in order to ensure the largest solar panel catches the most light.

Prof Mark McCaughrean, Esa's senior scientific adviser, has described the agency as "hugely happy" with the information relayed by Philae so far.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30074258
 
More pics of the landing:

Comet lander: Camera sees Philae's hairy landing
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News

High-resolution pictures have now been released of the Philae probe in the act of landing on Comet 67P last Wednesday.
They were acquired by the Narrow Angle Camera on the Rosetta satellite, which had dropped the little robot towards the surface of the "ice mountain".

The images are presented as a mosaic covering the half-hour or so around the "first touchdown" - the probe then bounced to a stop about 1km away.
Philae lost battery power on Saturday and is no longer talking with Earth.
Scientists still have not located the craft's current resting spot.

But European Space Agency controllers have not given up hope of hearing from the plucky robot again - if it can somehow get enough light on to its solar panels to recharge its systems.
Getting a precise fix on its location, to then photograph its present predicament would provide a better idea of whether this is likely to happen.

The new NAC images will certainly help in this respect because they show the direction the lander took as it bounced away.

At the weekend, Esa presented some fascinating views of the first touchdown taken by Rosetta's navigation cameras, but the Osiris NAC system has substantially better resolution.
The new mosaic is produced by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, which operates Osiris.

It details Philae's descent, and the impact mark it leaves on 67P's surface. You then see the 100kg probe heading away on its initial bounce. (All times are in GMT on Wednesday. The resolution is 28 cm/pixel).

This rebound reached hundreds of metres above the comet and lasted almost two hours.
When Philae came back down, it made another small leap, which took it into a high-walled trap.
Telemetry and pictures from the robot itself indicate this location is covered in deep shadow for most of 67P's day.
As a consequence, Philae receives insufficient solar power to re-boot and form a radio link to the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft.

Esa cannot be sure the robot will ever come back to life, but even if it does not the agency says it is "hugely happy" with what was achieved in the more than 50 hours following landing.
The probe managed to complete over 80% of its planned primary science campaign on the surface.
This data was pulled off the robot just before its sagging energy reserves dropped it into sleep mode.

Little of the results have so far been released by the various instrument teams. The one major exception is MUPUS.
This sensor package from the German space agency's Institute for Planetary Research deployed a thermometer on the end of a hammer.
It retrieved a number of temperature profiles but broke as it tried to burrow its way into the comet's subsurface.
Scientists say this shows the icy material underlying 67P's dust covering to be far harder than anyone anticipated - having the tensile strength of some rocks.
It also helps explain why Philae bounced so high on that first touchdown.

The 4km-wide comet has little gravity, so when key landing systems designed to hold the robot down failed at the crucial moment - the probe would have been relying on thick, soft, compressive layers to absorb its impact.
However much dust it did encounter at that moment, it clearly was not enough to prevent Philae making its giant rebound.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30083969
 
Comet landing: Where next for Philae mission?
By Paul Rincon, Science editor, BBC News website

...

Both the Civa and Rolis cameras on Philae have returned images taken during the descent to the comet and from its surface.

We also know that the MUPUS instrument attempted to hammer into the surface to use its sensors to gauge the comet's temperature. But underneath some "fluffy" material, was some very hard stuff indeed.
MUPUS scientists tried each of the hammer's three power settings - and after failing to penetrate the surface using those, proceeded to a "secret" fourth setting. This setting, nicknamed "desperate mode", broke the hammer. :shock:

Nevertheless, the exercise suggests the surface of the comet may have a tensile strength approaching that of sandstone.
That in itself may be a significant scientific discovery, because it's a far cry from the softer consistency some have envisaged for these "dirty snowballs" - thought to be relics from the formation of the Solar System.
While we had thought asteroids were largely rocky or metallic and comets predominantly icy, recent research suggests the division is fuzzier than first thought.

...

As Philae's battery power waned, it was feared there might be only one opportunity to drill, so scientists had to choose one of the two gas analysers on Philae to give the sample to.
They opted for the German-built COSAC instrument, which was designed to identify carbon-based (organic) compounds and analyse volatile compounds - water, carbon dioxide and others - in the surface. This might shed light on the chemical package delivered to Earth early on in its history, when it was being bombarded by such objects regularly.

COSAC was favoured over sending the sample to the British-led Ptolemy instrument, as the latter was considered more energy intensive than its German counterpart. It remains unclear whether all the stages in this task were completed successfully.
Nevertheless, COSAC was able to "sniff" the comet's thin atmosphere for organics; analysis of the results is ongoing.

Ptolemy is designed to detect different forms of light elements such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. This could shed light on the relationship between these relic bodies and the planets in our Solar System.
For example, it could help answer whether comets originated during the same events that spawned Earth, or whether they record a history that stretches back much further.

...

Advocates of space exploration will argue that the mission has been a roaring success. And in many ways it has.
But it was not an unqualified one. The systems designed to tack the lander to the comet failed - including the vital harpoons. If those had worked, Philae might be in a very different situation to the one it finds itself in today.

It must, however, be remembered that the brilliant scientists and engineers who worked on this mission were pushing the boundaries of exploration.
The dangers associated with landing meant that most scientific capital was invested in the orbiter - Rosetta. This will continue to orbit and observe 67P for at least a further year.

The mission has helped demystify these icy bodies, so long a symbol of disaster and misfortune to the ancients.
It has also taken the first steps towards unravelling the true nature of these cosmic nomads, and in so doing will probe fundamental questions about the origins of our planet and the life that thrives upon it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30082878
 
Comet landing: Organic molecules detected by Philae
By Paul Rincon, Science editor, BBC News website

The Philae lander has detected organic molecules on the surface of its comet, scientists have confirmed.
Carbon-containing "organics" are the basis of life on Earth and may give clues to chemical ingredients delivered to our planet early in its history.
The compounds were picked up by a German-built instrument designed to "sniff" the comet's thin atmosphere.
Other analyses suggest the comet's surface is largely water-ice covered with a thin dust layer.

The European Space Agency (Esa) craft touched down on the Comet 67P on 12 November after a 10-year journey.
Dr Fred Goessmann, principal investigator on the Cosac instrument, which made the organics detection, confirmed the find to BBC News. But he added that the team was still trying to interpret the results.
It has not been disclosed which molecules have been found, or how complex they are.

But the results are likely to provide insights into the possible role of comets in contributing some of the chemical building blocks to the primordial mix from which life evolved on the early Earth.

Preliminary results from the Mupus instrument, which deployed a hammer to the comet after Philae's landing, suggest there is a layer of dust 10-20cm thick on the surface with very hard water-ice underneath.
The ice would be frozen solid at temperatures encountered in the outer Solar System - Mupus data suggest this layer has a tensile strength similar to sandstone.

"It's within a very broad spectrum of ice models. It was harder than expected at that location, but it's still within bounds," said Prof Mark McCaughrean, senior science adviser to Esa, told BBC News.
"People will be playing with [mathematical] models of pure water-ice mixed with certain amount of dust."
He explained: "You can't rule out rock, but if you look at the global story, we know the overall density of the comet is 0.4g/cubic cm. There's no way the thing's made of rock.
"It's more likely there's sintered ice at the surface with more porous material lower down that hasn't been exposed to the Sun in the same way."

After bouncing off the surface at least twice, Philae came to a stop in some sort of high-walled trap.
"The fact that we landed up against something may actually be in our favour. If we'd landed on the main surface, the dust layer may have been even thicker and it's possible we might not have gone down [to the ice]," said Prof McCaughrean.

Scientists had to race to perform as many key tests as they could before Philae's battery life ran out at the weekend.

A key objective was to drill a sample of "soil" and analyse it in Cosac's oven. But, disappointingly, the latest information suggest no soil was delivered to the instrument.
Prof McCaughrean explained: "We didn't necessarily see many organics in the signal. That could be because we didn't manage to pick up a sample. But what we know is that the drill went down to its full extent and came back up again."
"But there's no independent way to say: This is what the sample looks like before you put it in there."

Scientists are hopeful however that as Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko approaches the Sun in coming months, Philae's solar panels will see sunlight again. This might allow the batteries to re-charge, and enable the lander to perform science once more.

"There's a trade off - once it gets too hot, Philae will die as well. There is a sweet spot," said Prof McCaughrean.
He added: "Given the fact that there is a factor of six, seven, eight in solar illumination and the last action we took was to rotate the body of Philae around to get the bigger solar panel in, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think it may well happen.
"By being in the shadow of the cliff, it might even help us, that we might not get so hot, even at full solar illumination. But if you don't get so hot that you don't overheat, have you got enough solar power to charge the system."

The lander's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), designed to provide information on the elemental composition of the surface, seems to have partially seen a signal from its own lens cover - which could have dropped off at a strange angle because Philae was not lying flat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30097648
 
link includes the recording

SESAME experiment CASSE records sound of first landing

http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10081/151_read-12221/year-all/#/gallery/17248

A short but significant 'thud' was heard by the Cometary Acoustic Surface Sounding Experiment (CASSE) as Philae made its first touchdown on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The two-second recording from space is the very first of the contact between a man-made object with a comet upon landing. The CASSE sensors are located in the feet at the base of all three legs of the lander and were active on 12 November 2014 during the descent to the comet. “The contact with the surface was short, but we can evaluate the scientific data," says Martin Knapmeyer, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and scientific leader of the CASSE Team.

The signals acquired by the three lander feet are more enlightening for the researchers than might seem for the lay man: "The Philae lander came into contact with a soft layer several centimetres thick. Then, just milliseconds later, the feet encountered a hard, perhaps icy layer on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko," explains DLR researcher Klaus Seidensticker, who is responsible for the Surface Electric Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment (SESAME), which includes CASSE.

During the descent phase, CASSE initially detected vibrations from the flywheel that stabilised the flight. Upon its first contact with the comet’s surface, Philae bounced because the harpoons intended to anchor it as it touched down failed to deploy. "From our data, we can determine that no second landing occurred immediately after the first bounce,' explains Knapmeyer. Together with data from the ROMAP instrument, it has been determined that Philae did not immediately return to the comet surface after the first touchdown and bounce during the evening of 12 November.

Philae landed a total of three times, finally coming to rest on the surface at 18:32 CET and immediately starting to conduct the next measurements. CASSE transmitted and received vibrations from the lander’s feet to determine the mechanical properties of the comet surface. CASSE also detected vibrations as the MUPUS instrument attempted to hammer a probe deep into the hard surface material.

The two other components of SESAME, the Dust Impact Monitor (DIM) and the Permittivity Probe (PP) experiments, performed measurements and sent data back to Earth during Philae's more than 60 hours of operation. Initial analyses of data from DIM suggest that the final landing site on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – at the edge of a crater – is not currently active. No particles were detected, which suggests that no dust is moving in the immediate vicinity of the lander. The PP experiment used a number of electrodes to transmit alternating current through the comet surface and was able to detect that there is a large quantity of water ice under Philae.

On 12 November 2014, shortly after the first touchdown, it became clear to the team at the DLR Lander Control Center that the harpoons had not fired and that the Philae lander had very likely rebounded. DLR researcher Klaus Seidensticker initially feared an unfavourable outcome for the mission: "But now we have much more data than I had hoped for."
 
dreeness said:
Wtf is "Shirtgate" ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpoVLD59okQ
Click to expand...
The colourful shirt worn by one of the British scientists on Philae landing day was considered too sexy and inappropriate by some small-minded people who kicked up a fuss on the internet about it. Eejits!

(The shirt displayed scantily clad women, and was given to him by his girlfriend!)
 
Comet landing: UK team's data bonanza from Philae
By Pallab Ghosh, Science correspondent, BBC News

UK Researchers received "rich" data from the Philae lander just before its power died.
Scientists say they detected what might be complex carbon compounds on the surface of the comet the craft landed on two weeks ago.
The results are from the Ptolemy instrument, which is a miniaturised on-board laboratory.
The detection of carbon supports a view that comets may have brought key chemicals to Earth to kick-start life.

The team leader, Prof Ian Wright, told BBC News: "We can say with absolute certainty that we saw a very large signal of what are basically organic (carbon) compounds.
"There is a rich signal there. It is not simple. It is not like there are two compounds; there are clearly a lot of things there - a lot of peaks. Sometimes a complicated compound can give a lot of peaks."

The "peaks" refer to the graph produced by the Ptolemy instrument of the different molecules it detected. The result is in line with initial observations made by a similar German-led instrument on Philae.

In an exclusive interview with BBC News, Prof Wright explained that Ptolemy had gathered huge amounts of scientific data. Normally a quiet, understated man, he was marginally better at containing his enthusiasm than his co-worker and wife, Prof Monica Grady, who jumped for and then wept with joy and relief when Philae landed.
Prof Wright told me: "I am as excited now as I was a couple of weeks ago. It's tremendous!"
"For years, I've been giving public lectures about what we plan to do. Now we have some data and it's: Wow! This is what scientists do this stuff for."

Much of the data gathered by Ptolemy was collected on the fly. Shortly after the Rosetta spacecraft was activated in January, Prof Wright and his team saw the opportunity to analyse the comet's tail as the spacecraft approached.
"It is not something we had planned to do, but it became obvious that it was something we could do."

The early data suggests that the composition of the gases changed as the spacecraft got closer to the comet.
Prof Wright also explained that Philae's bouncy landing suited his experiment. Among Ptolemy's capabilities is the ability to analyse gases and particles around it, and so it was pre-programmed to sniff its environment shortly after landing.
Pictures from Rosetta show that the first landing created a dust cloud, providing Ptolemy with a feast of data.

But Philae's bouncy landing and eventual resting place in the shade meant that it would not be able to recharge its solar powered batteries. The Ptolemy team had a few hours to rethink its scientific programme and upload a much curtailed set of experiments to the instrument.

Fuelled by the drama of the landing, and feeling the weight of history on their shoulders, all the various Philae instrument teams spent the night feverishly working to make the best use of the precious few days of operating life that the lander had left.

The hardest moment for the Philae team was having to abandon plans to analyse material drilled from underneath the comet's surface. Overall, programme managers deemed that there was only sufficient battery power to drill for one sample, rather than two as was originally planned. A collective decision was therefore made that any sample should be analysed by the German-led COSAC instrument - not Ptolemy.
It is unclear whether the drill successfully managed to get a sample to COSAC.

But mission planners did grant the UK team Philae's last ounce of strength to operate Ptolemy's oven, to heat up all the debris that had collected inside the instrument to 200C and analyse the gases that came off.

Prof Wright confirms that this experiment was successfully carried out and that the results could give an indication of the composition of the carbon and nitrogen on the comet. These results may in turn help piece together what happened in the early years of the Solar System when the planets were forming.

The team wishes that Ptolemy could have carried out its full mission, but Prof Wright says the group is delighted with the results it has obtained. It also has the optimistic possibility of Philae coming back to life in the weeks ahead as the comet moves closer to the Sun and lighting conditions improve at the landing site.

"If you ask me whether we have done all we could have done, the answer is 'no'. But I remain optimistic that the thing may come back to life and we will get the chance to do those things," he said. 8)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30209533
 
Rosetta images show soaring 1km comet cliff
A British amateur astronomer has zoomed in on images from the Rosetta spacecraft to reveal cliffs that are more than half a mile high

cliff-rosetta_3147479b.jpg

The cliffs of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko Photo: Rosetta
By Philip Sherwell, New York
6:23PM GMT 23 Dec 2014

Dramatic images of a comet hurtling through space some 250 million miles from Earth have revealed a stunning landscape of towering cliffs soaring above a rugged surface strewn with giant boulders.
The walls of rock are more than half a mile high, but the low surface gravity of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko probably means that a human would survive a jump from its top.
The images were captured by the Rosetta, a robotic spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency that began orbiting the 2.5 mile wide comet in early August before deploying the Philae lander to the surface.
But the full dramatic contours, including the frighteningly vertical cliffs, were then identified by Stuart Atkinson, a British amateur astronomer and image processing expert who zoomed in on the most intriguing views yet of its imposing landscape.
“Well, Christmas came early for me today,” Mr Atkinson wrote on his CumbrianSky blog after his work was made Astronomy Picture of the Day by the US space agency Nasa.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...etta-images-show-soaring-1km-comet-cliff.html
 
OneWingedBird said:
Whoever wrote that didn't quite get the concept of 'down', did they?
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. A comet will have some version of 'up' and 'down', although this would change depending om your location on the surface (and might vary significantly due to rotation and tumbling).

On a small object, a few hundred metres or less, this tumbling might even cause the direction of up to reverse and point into the sky. But comet 67P is large enough to have positive gravity all over its surface.
 
I was meaning that the concept of a cliff in the way that we think of one depends on it having a top and bottom and therefore there being a down that's in the same plane as the cliff.

In this case the comet is dumbell shaped and the bit they're calling a cliff is on the inner part of one of the bells, so I'm guessing the gravity there would be towards the centre of that particular bell. In which case the cliff would just be the ground if you were on it, not allowing for whatever kookyness goes on with the gravity from the other bell.
 
Some Excitement closer to home! Will be looking out on the 12th of January sounds like a big one, wonder will it be visible.
 
Waylander28 said:
Some Excitement closer to home! Will be looking out on the 12th of January sounds like a big one, wonder will it be visible.
Click to expand...
"Plumes of debris thrown into the atmosphere would change the climate making the planet inhabitable for all life including humans." :)

Come friendly asteroids and rain on Slough! I'm sure the poet Betjeman would have been pleased!

(And please, Waylander, give some text with your link - the word Excitement tells me nothing. If a page takes ages to load, I like to know it's worth waiting for.)
 
Sorry Rynner,

:) thought I got it all in there. Posted in the comet thread, excitement closer to home, from the previous posts about the very distant 67P, and even the date of the event. :p. Well so much for intrigue.

Anyway I have tried to find out ore about the most prominent of these supposed 70 odd comets, meteors, asteroids, heading this way in the next few months. That being 2007 EJ, over 1 kiilometer wide, that is due to pass close to Earth on the 12 of January. Though all the information is the same, and do not indicate the proximity of its passing to earth. Would be interesting to find out how close to earth these various rocks will pass?
 
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Ditch the cigarettes to see comet Lovejoy, says astronomer
Glowing green comet Lovejoy is making its closest approach to Earth at the moment

comet_2092834b.jpg

Comet Lovejoy was photographed by Nasa astronaut Dan Burbank onboard the International Space Station Photo: AP Photo/Nasa, Dan Burbank

By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
5:32PM GMT 09 Jan 2015

Stargazers hoping to catch a glimpse of comet ‘Lovejoy’ this weekend should ditch the cigarettes, an astronomer has advised.
The glowing green comet is making its closest approach to Earth at the moment, proving amateur astronomers a sight that will not be seen again for 8,000 years.
And while it may be tempting to indulge in a cigarette while shivering in the January chill, astronomer Geoff Wyatt said it could prevent people seeing the comet.
Mr Wyatt said smoking affects the blood supply to the optic nerve and reduces night vision.
He also advised getting away from light pollution to improve the view.

“There's a lot of beautiful stuff up there in the night sky," said the Sydney Observatory astronomer.
"We all know the hit-parade things – the moon, the stars and the planets. But every now and then you get something out of left field and it's like a surprise birthday present.
"Getting away from light pollution would improve the view, as would not smoking a cigarette immediately beforehand."

This weekend Lovejoy is just about bright enough to be glimpsed as a small smudge of light with the naked eye.
Through a small telescope or binoculars it appears as a softly glowing, bluish green ball., roughly half the apparent width of the moon.
The comet is currently in front of the constellation Taurus the Bull by January 9 having just passed by Orion, one of the easiest constellations to find because of its three star ‘belt.’

Like other comets, Lovejoy is big chunk of ice and dust orbiting the sun. It belongs to the family of "long period" comets which means it takes a long time to travel in from the fringes of the solar system.
The object last passed through the inner solar system 11,500 years ago, and is not expected to return for another 8,000.

On Wednesday the comet reached its closest point to the Earth, a distance of 44 million miles, but it will remain easy to spot for about the next two weeks.
Robin Scagell, vice president of the Society for Popular Astronomy, said: "It appears bluish green and is quite pretty, but not dramatic. I would call it a good workmanlike comet.
"The nice thing about it is that its visible at night rather than at dawn or dusk."

The comet was discovered on August 17 last year by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, who spotted it in images taken by his eight-inch backyard telescope

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...tes-to-see-comet-Lovejoy-says-astronomer.html
 
Just been looking on Heavens Above for the latest data on Lovejoy. (Sadly the site now takes advertising, which slows it down, but all the stuff is still there. You may need to register or log in.)

Lovejoy is magnitude 5, so should be seen by my trusty old 7x50 bins; I now know where to look, so all I need now is clear skies! (I'm keeping my fingers crossed after the disappointment of last year's much lauded but unseen two comets.)
 
Had a quick look, and caught Taurus briefly between passing clouds (the ground is wet, so we've obviously had recent showers). But the real problem is that Taurus right now in UK is at about maximum altitude, and holding binoculars steady at that angle is not easy! I might have another look later tonight, when it's lower in the sky.

But those of you with mounted telescopes will get the best view when it's highest - less atmosphere in the way!
 
Dark Cornwall skies offer a glimpse of Comet Lovejoy from this weekend
By WBGraeme | Posted: January 10, 2015

9304701-large.jpg

Comet Lovejoy

TAKE a step back away from the street lights this weekend or over the next week and you could be rewarded with sight of an unusual comet.
The colourful Comet Lovejoy won’t be back this way for 8,000 years.
The distinctive blue-green celestial object last passed through the inner solar system 11,500 years ago.
But for the next two weeks, the icy mass will be visible to stargazers as it travels past the Earth.

Brian Sheen, director at the Roseland Obseratory in St Stephen, said the first place for amateur stargazers to start was as far away from light pollution as possible.
“At the moment the comet is quite hard to spot. It was at its closest point to the sun on Wednesday so it might get brighter in coming days.
“Next week is likely to be one of the best times to see it, which is when we are hoping to hold a public viewing event.
“Generally, places like the car parks of reservoirs can be quite good for looking at the stars, because they tend to be quite dark.”

The nucleus of Comet Lovejoy is estimated to be two to three miles across.
The comet’s green hue is produced by certain carbon molecules that fluoresce under the Sun’s rays.
It was discovered on August 17 last year by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, who spotted it in images taken by his eight-inch telescope.
Its official name is Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy.

Kim Mackintosh, assistant director at Tolcarn Observatory near Coombe in Cornwall, said the rare arrival of the comet presented a great opportunity to get people interested in science.
“It’s really worthwhile just getting in a car, driving out somewhere dark and looking up – so few people do that nowadays,” she said.
“The best time to see it is just after midnight, before the moon comes up.”
“If you’re trying to find it with the naked eye, you should start by looking slightly to the left or right of where you expect it to be.”

This weekend Comet Lovejoy could be glimpsed as a small smudge of light with the naked eye.
Through a small telescope or binoculars it appears as a softly glowing, bluish green ball, roughly half the apparent width of the moon.
As of last night, the comet is in front of the constellation of Taurus, which can be found to the right of Orion. The comet can be found beneath and to the right of Taurus' famous 'horns'. It will move up across the sky over the next two weeks towards the constellation of Perseus. It will pass closest to Earth on Wednesday

Read more: http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Dark-Cornwall-skies-offer-glimpse-Comet-Lovejoy/story-25835865-detail/story.html#ixzz3OVGJ0myK
 
The skies over much of Britain should be clear tonight, and the Comet is now brighter at Mag 4, so a good chance to spot it.

The bad news is it will be very cold outside!
 
Will we be able to recognise it from its loveable roguishness, questionable mullet and penchant for posh totty?

Erm... coat? :p
 
I just went out for a while - it's a beautiful starry night, and not even cold!
But here is not ideal for viewing - what with street lights and security lights and car drivers who insist on using headlights at night, it's hard to protect your night vision. Then there are trees which limit where you can view from. And I can't walk far now to find a better spot.

But the real problem is, my aged muscles cannot hold the bins steady at the required elevation - over 57 degrees right now, according to HeavensAbove! I might do better trying for a naked eye sighting, if I could preserve my night vision.
 
Lovejoy has passed the meridian and begun sinking towards the west. Possibly I might get a view from my flat before it drops below the trees...

(Don't hold your breath!)
 
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