Get the most from Comet ISON in late October

Get the most from Comet ISON in late October
The comet has a fine encounter with a trio of galaxies in Leo as the month closes.
By Michael E. Bakich | Published: Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The potentially great Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) is still on the upswing. The enigmatic object continues to brighten in the latter half of October. Earlier in the month, it danced with Mars and Regulus, Leo the Lion’s brightest star.

By the final two weeks of October, ISON is speeding up. The closer it gets to our star, the faster it travels. The comet’s separation from Mars grows from 0.9° on the 17th to nearly 7° by the 31st.
Still, the comet rides quite high in the morning sky. From mid-northern latitudes, the ISON reaches its peak elevation from October 19 to 25. For those seven days, the comet stands 35° above the eastern horizon at the moment twilight begins.

Luna and ISON slide closer to each other on the 29th, but the best scene by far arrives October 30. The Moon then lies 6° south (to the lower right) of the comet. With just 18 percent of the lunar disk lit, its glow shouldn’t detract much from the comet’s beauty, and it may even enhance the setting.

By November 1, the Moon prepares to exit the morning sky and the stage will be set for ISON’s greatest performance. The comet will continue to brighten, peaking on the 28th when ISON reaches its closest approach to our daytime star.

Although still invisible to the naked eye, Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) is brightening as expected. Amateur telescopes can reveal its tiny head, its growing outer atmosphere that astronomers call the coma, and its lengthening tail. And, as we see here, long-exposure images also show the comet’s greenish color.
Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

Comet from the Oort Cloud Careens toward the Sun
This month Comet ISON will fly by the sun in an encounter that could destroy the object, or elevate it to greatness
By Clara Moskowitz
November 4, 2013

It’s make or break time for Comet c/2012 S1 (ISON), a ball of ice hurtling toward the inner solar system that will make its closest approach to the sun this month. Whether ISON will flare into a “great comet” or fizzle out is still an open question, but scientists say either way, ISON offers an unprecedented opportunity to understand the ingredients and history of the solar system.

“We’ve never had a comet that seems to come directly from the Oort Cloud, on its first passage to the inner solar system in four billion years, all the way to within three solar radii of the solar surface,” says astronomer Michael Kelley of the University of Maryland, College Park. Kelley has been part of several campaigns to image ISON using telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and the Canary Islands.

The exceptional opportunity has galvanized astronomers. Dozens of telescopes on the ground, in space, and on sounding rockets and high-altitude balloons are being trained on the comet as it approaches its showdown with the sun. They are tracking the comet in the visible, infrared, radio, x-ray and gamma-ray bands. Even satellites and rovers based at Mars and Mercury as well as spacecraft orbiting the sun have been enlisted to help. The project is being organized by the NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign , which keeps a calendar view of all planned ISON observations.

From All Science, All the Time :

Via Spaceweather.com: "Whatever piece of the comet briefly survived its Thanksgiving Day brush with solar fire is now dissipating in a cloud of dust. This is a 4-day movie updated @ 0100 UT on Dec. 1st.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

This development makes it unlikely that Comet ISON will put on a good show after it exits the glare of the sun in early December. Experienced astrophotographers might be able to capture the comet's fading "ghost" in the pre-dawn sky, but a naked-eye spectacle is out of the question."

Cool video! from spaceweather site above

Ghost of Comet ISON Fading Fast
Posted by Andrew Fazekas in StarStruck on December 1, 2013

Illustration showing where to search for remain of Comet ISON in the east-southeast skies before dawn. Credit: NASA