Comet PanSTARRS

Comet PanSTARRS

February 13th, 2013

It’s been a while since we had a good comet. Long enough that children in North America probably haven’t seen one, and you might have forgotten just how amazing they can be.

Comets Are Awesome

Comet Huyakutake spanned 100 degrees in the sky.

I know you don’t believe me, but comets can be spectacular objects to view without any magnification at all. No binoculars, no telescope, no squinting. This one might take a little magnification though, we’ll see. Comets are also unpredictable.

In 1996 Comet Huyakutake‘s tail spanned 100 degrees across the sky. Hold your arms at right angles to each other, then lift them up over your head, still at right angles. That’s 90 degrees. Look from one hand to the other- the tail was longer than the distance between your two hands (approximately). Now, Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) will probably not be like Huyakutake. All the evidence recently points to it being a bit of a dud, but it could still surprise us.

Comet Hale-Bopp (in 1997), which you likely remember had two tails, and under the best conditions that tail was about 10 degrees long. Hold your fist at arm’s length, and from knuckle to knuckle is about 10 degrees. The Moon is half a degree.

As of February 9th, PanSTARRS had a 2 degree gas and ion tail, visible in long-exposure photography from the Southern Hemisphere.

Can I See PanSTARRS?

This is what you all want to know, right? According to Sky and Telescope it is on track to being visible here in the northern hemisphere.

When? March 12-24, 2013 is your best bet from the Northern Hemisphere (West Seattlites, this is you!). Look just after sunset. Lucky for us, West Seattle has a GREAT western horizon for stargazing. I’ll meet you at Lincoln Park, okay?
Where? In the west, low on the horizon. Since it is just after sunset you won’t see many stars, but it is in the constellation Pisces in early March, and Andromeda in later March. Astronomy has a good finder chart.
How? As of now, you’ll need binoculars. If it brightens up considerably you might not, but plan on bringing binoculars.
What? Comet PanSTARRS currently has a 2 degree tail (two pinkie-finger widths), and should max out at a little brighter than the dimmer stars visible from the city of Seattle. With good viewing, the tail will be longer than the full Moon. If you can see the tail, observe how it is directed away from where the Sun just set.
Is it close? We’re all about the close approaches right now. Comet PanSTARRS “will pass about 100 million miles from Earth as it briefly dips inside the orbit of Mercury.” according to NASA. That’s about the same as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Not so close.