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MaryM
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| Posted: Sept 28 2012 at 9:44am | IP Logged
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Several "space" blogs and websites are reporting in the past couple of days on what may be another very bright comet lighting up the sky in late 2013. The comet, named C/2012 S1 (ISON), could light the sky late next year. This is on the heals of another bright comet expected earlier in the year, C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) which has been getting press since its discovery last year. This one will be visible to us in Spring 2013.
But everyone is cautioning it's too early to know for sure. Comets are notoriously unpredictable and may not "perform" as expected. Astronomer and noted comet discoverer David Levy once quipped, “Comets are like cats. They both have tails—and they do exactly what they want.” 
Let's hope its a great comet year. My kids would be so excited. It has been quite awhile since we've had anything of note in that area.
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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| Posted: Feb 08 2013 at 2:46am | IP Logged
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Hoping to get everyone excited about the upcoming astronomical events. THe first comet is almost here - March!
This is what they have been saying the past several weeks:
2013 could be the best year for comet spotting in generations.
Comet PANSTARRS could blaze as bright as Venus in March (March 10-24)
The second, Comet ISON just might be so spectacular, it could very well be the "comet of the century."
"...brighter than the full moon."
"...could be the brightest in memory"
And now today I am seeing talk of a third - one that they didn't think would be visible to the naked eye, that now appears will be much brighter - Comet LEMMON. It is currently visible in the Southern Hemisphere and should be able to be seen in Northern Hemisphere beginning in April.
Latin: stella cometa - “hairy star”
Science:
Early scientific thoughts on comets: Isaac Newton described comets as compact and durable solid bodies moving in oblique orbits, and their tails as thin streams of vapor emitted by their nuclei, ignited or heated by the Sun. Newton suspected that comets were the origin of the life-supporting component of air. Newton also believed that the vapors given off by comets might replenish the planets' supplies of water (which was gradually being converted into soil by the growth and decay of plants), and the Sun's supply of fuel.
Science demo: How to make a "comet" at home. YouTube video with instructions
Another - Construct a Comet from National Geographic
Interactive Comet Animation
Collection of educational videos
Books about or featuring comets:
Picture Books:
Maria's Comet (Deborah Hopkinson)
Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings (Douglas Florian)
Non-Fiction Juvenile:
Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids (Seymour Simon)
Chapter Book:
Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson)
Comets In Art:
Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency, intended to fly by and study Halley's Comet. On 13 March 1986, the mission succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. The spacecraft was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting Adoration of the Magi.
Prehistoric Rock Art - Comets
Example from Chaco Canyon, NM
Bayeaux Tapestry
it appears on the Bayeaux tapestry that was made to commemorate the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
In the tapestry (Long Live The King - Scene 1) we are shown two men gazing into the sky with the inscription Isti Mirant (These men wonder) then a fiery ball with a tail, with the word Stella (The star): and then Harold on a throne looking into the lower border of the tapestry where a ghostly fleet of ships is pictured.
Website with complete Bayeux Tapestry
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Mary M. in Denver
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Feb 08 2013 at 4:22pm | IP Logged
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So cool! 
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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MaryM
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| Posted: Feb 16 2013 at 1:12pm | IP Logged
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A list of the 13 Best Star Gazing Events of 2013
Doesn't include Comet LEMMON in April, since apparently it was compiled before the projection that LEMMON was showing to be brighter than expected.
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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| Posted: Feb 20 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged
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Even found some Comet poetry and literature connections!
The Comet
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Comet! He is on his way,
And singing as he flies;
The whizzing planets shrink before
The spectre of the skies;
Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,
And satellites turn pale,
Ten million cubic miles of head,
Ten billion leagues of tail!
On, on by whistling spheres of light
He flashes and he flames;
He turns not to the left nor right,
He asks them not their names;
One spurn from his demoniac heel,--
Away, away they fly,
Where darkness might be bottled up
And sold for "Tyrian dye."
And what would happen to the land,
And how would look the sea,
If in the bearded devil's path
Our earth should chance to be?
Full hot and high the sea would boil,
Full red the forests gleam;
Methought I saw and heard it all
In a dyspeptic dream!
I saw a tutor take his tube
The Comet's course to spy;
I heard a scream,--the gathered rays
Had stewed the tutor's eye;
I saw a fort,--the soldiers all
Were armed with goggles green;
Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls!
Bang went the magazine!
I saw a poet dip a scroll
Each moment in a tub,
I read upon the warping back,
"The Dream of Beelzebub;"
He could not see his verses burn,
Although his brain was fried,
And ever and anon he bent
To wet them as they dried.
I saw the scalding pitch roll down
The crackling, sweating pines,
And streams of smoke, like water-spouts,
Burst through the rumbling mines;
I asked the firemen why they made
Such noise about the town;
They answered not,--but all the while
The brakes went up and down.
I saw a roasting pullet sit
Upon a baking egg;
I saw a cripple scorch his hand
Extinguishing his leg;
I saw nine geese upon the wing
Towards the frozen pole,
And every mother's gosling fell
Crisped to a crackling coal.
I saw the ox that browsed the grass
Writhe in the blistering rays,
The herbage in his shrinking jaws
Was all a fiery blaze;
I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags,
Bob through the bubbling brine;
And thoughts of supper crossed my soul;
I had been rash at mine.
Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream!
Its memory haunts me still,
The steaming sea, the crimson glare,
That wreathed each wooded hill;
Stranger! if through thy reeling brain
Such midnight visions sweep,
Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal,
And sweet shall be thy sleep!
A NAUGHTY LITTLE COMET
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There was a little comet who lived near the Milky Way!
She loved to wander out at night and jump about and play.
The mother of the comet was a very good old star;
She used to scold her reckless child for venturing out too far.
She told her of the ogre, Sun, who loved on stars to sup,
And who asked no better pastime than in gobbling comets up.
But instead of growing cautious and of showing proper fear,
The foolish little comet edged up nearer, and more near.
She switched her saucy tail along right where the Sun could see,
And flirted with old Mars, and was as bold as bold could be.
She laughed to scorn the quiet stars who never frisked about;
She said there was no fun in life unless you ventured out.
She liked to make the planets stare, and wished no better mirth
Than just to see the telescopes aimed at her from the Earth.
She wondered how so many stars could mope through nights and days,
And let the sickly faced old Moon get all the love and praise.
And as she talked and tossed her head and switched her shining trail
The staid old mother star grew sad, her cheek grew wan and pale.
For she had lived there in the skies a million years or more,
And she had heard gay comets talk in just this way before.
And by and by there came an end to this gay comet's fun.
She went a tiny bit too far--and vanished in the Sun!
No more she swings her shining trail before the whole world's sight,
But quiet stars she laughed to scorn are twinkling every night.
Some literature connections:
"The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in the June 1835 issue of the monthly magazine Southern Literary Messenger, and intended by Poe to be a hoax.
Poe planned to continue the hoax in further installments, but was upstaged by the famous Great Moon Hoax which started in the August 25, 1835 issue of the New York Sun daily newspaper. Poe later wrote that the flippant tone of the story made it easy for educated readers to see through the supposed hoax.
"The Conversation of Eiros And Charmion" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, an apocalyptic science fiction story first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1839.
"Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" is a short story written by American writer Mark Twain. It first appeared in print in Harper's Magazine in December 1907 and January 1908, and was published in book form with some revisions in 1909. This was the last story published by Twain during his life.
Comet Mentions in Shakespeare:
Julius Caesar (II, ii, 30-31)
Calpurnia: "When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
Calpurnia, wife of Julius Caesar, begs her husband not to venture out on this morning, the ides of March. Caesar has spent a restless night and there is a wild storm raging. Calpurnia has had disturbing dreams, as well; crying out three times in her sleep, "They murder Caesar!" She begs him to stay home. Caesar sends word to the priests and they, too, return a warning that Caesar must stay home. Calpurnia is very upset , especially because of the strange events of the preceding evening: reports that a lioness was seen giving birth in the streets of Rome, the dead rising from their graves, warriors fighting in the clouds, reports of horses neighing and dying men groaning, ghosts shrieking. Comets were seen during the night, which Calpurnia interprets as a prophecy of the death of a prince.
Hamlet
Horatio also talking about comets in the play Hamlet when he reminds his friends about how, when Julius Caesar was assassinated, the sky was troubled with “stars with trains of fire” (1.1.106.10)
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 05 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged
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MaryM wrote:
Comet PANSTARRS could blaze as bright as Venus in March (March 10-24) |
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"The comet has been visible for weeks from the Southern Hemisphere. Now the top half of the world gets a glimpse as well.
The best viewing days should be next Tuesday and Wednesday, when Pan-STARRS appears next to a crescent moon at dusk in the western sky. Until then, glare from the sun will obscure the comet."
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 13 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged
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Anyone see it yet? This is the best week for viewing.
We saw it last night in Denver with binoculars, about 7:30. Several walls of clouds moving through but breaking briefly during that time just enough to watch for about 15 minutes. The crescent moon was such a help in locating it – without it never would have found it. What a treat.
It is low on the western horizon visible for about an hour after sunset. Yesterday just to the left of the crescent moon sliver. Tonight it will be below the crescent moon since the moon will be a little higher int eh sky each night this week. Without the moon as a reference point it would be hard to find. Very faint - we couldn't make it out without the binoculars so it isn't a "naked eye" viewing comet.
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Mary M. in Denver
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Bright comets visible 2013 - coming soon!
