Comets past, present and future

Comets...harbingers of doom, celestial swords or celestial broomsticks. They have been called all sorts of names over the ages. One thing comets do bring is celestial fireworks. We have the periodic comets that have known orbits and visit our place in the universe every so often. There are short period comets, usually with orbital periods of less than 200 years. Examples of these include the infamous Halley's Comet, which visits our stick of the woods every 75 years.Then there are the long period comets, with orbital periods ranging anywhere from more than 200 years to a thousand or even millions of years. So what then are these celestial bodies. Comets have been called dirty snowballs. They are made up of mostly rock, dust, water ice, as well as frozen gasses such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. They originate from a comet primordial soup, the Oort cloud that consist or predominantly icy planetisimals and lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light year from the sun. Every now and then, slight peturbations cause these ice rocks to fall out of the cloud and travel towards out sun.Whether it be a spectacular firework show, or a whimper, comets attract the imagination of the masses since the dawn of time. Since they only appear briefly in our skies, astronomers welcome such visitors. Its funny how comets are more common that one would expect. There are many run of the mill comets that are visible at any given time of the year. These are the faint ones that require large telescopes to detect. It is the ones that approach naked eye visibility that attract the attention of the general populace. We have been lucky in recent years to get a spate of bright naked eye comets. Last years sun-grazer Comet Lovejoy was sight to behold from the southern hemisphere (ball's to those of us living in the northern hemisphere!). it was not projected to survive its encounter with the sun, but it surprised everyone and put on a show worthy of Comet McNaught! Then just early this year, two bright naked eye comets were visible at the same time. Comet Lemmon and Comet Panstarr's thrilled skywatchers in the southern hemisphere in late February/early March. And if predictions hold true, we could get another McNaught/Lovejoy prezzie of a super bright comet at the end of this year. Comet ISON (Comet C/2012 S1) is expected to wow us with its brilliance, it being a sun-grazer Comet ISON (coming within 800,000 miles (1.2 million km) of our sun’s surface on November 28), provided it survives its swing around the sun. I am not getting my hopes up just yet as comet's are notoriously unpredictable. Just look at the recent "poor" showing of Comet Panstarr's.

I have seen my fair share of great comets, some of which I have included piccies of. My comet craze started in the mid 80's with the return of Halley's Comet in 1986. Many people remember Halley's as a disappointment. I have nothing but fond memories of it, as it was my first comet, and it will forever be etched in my memory. Those cold, dewey night (by Malaysian standard's anyway) out under the stars from my parents place. I remember spotting it earlier than most people as I climbed up onto the roof of my parents place to spot the comet climbing out of the brightening predawn sky. I sketched the comet feverishly. I even had sketches of its ever expanding multi-tails and had a sketch of it beside NGC 5128! Unfortunately my sketches got lost and I don't have a record of the comet. All I have are memories and recollections of it. I observed the comet mostly with my 20x50 binoculars and my Celestron Cometron CO40.

Comet Hyakutake circa 1996 Malaysia

My next great comet came in the form of an unexpected visitor, Comet Hyakutake in 1996. This is one brilliant comet that swung very close to Earth. I was more ready for this one as I have been trying out simple astrophotography with my dad's SLR camera. I also had a proper photography tripod and had just begun playing around with faster ISO films (yes we used films back then!). I watched Hyakutake with the same instruments, the only instruments I had back in the day when I did not have much money. I remember the comet's great big greenish nucleus, visible to the unaided eye, as was its long tail, even from light polluted JB (back then the skies were heaps darker than they are today!). My most memorable recollection of this comet was its big greenish coma rising over the rooftop of my parents home, and its tail stretch away. To escape the streetlights, I would observe from the side skirting of my parents home as there were trees to shield the lights. This is where I took the shots of the comet! My most memorable comet to date!!!!

Hyakutake came at the cusp of change, when I was about to embark on my undergraduate degree in Australia. The move to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1997 opened up a whole new astronomical world for me. The skies were heaps darker there. Although I was still a struggling undergraduate student, I bought myself a cheap under $50 10x50 binoculars from K-Mart (Toowong store...I still remember fondly..one of the best years of my life!) that, under darker skies, showed heaps more than my 20x50 with its minisicule exit pupil from Malaysia. And no I did not have a telescope back then. I used this binoculars to death as we had an expansive window from our bedroom in the apartment on Lambert Road. I spied NGC 5128, the great Centaurus A galaxy, as well as NGC4945, the great edge on galaxy in Centaurus) from this very window. 1997 was also the year of another great naked eye comet, Comet Hale-Bopp. I followed Hale-Bopp for months with this very binoculars. This comet had a very nice curving dust tail that was easily visible with the naked eye. I remember watching the comet from the entrance into our apartment where the carports were located. Very very fond memories of that apartment, our first in Brisbane. Unfortunately I did not have my dad's photo rig with me so all I have are sketches.

After my undergraduate studies, I returned briefly to Malaysia and Singapore to work and spend time with family. I did not get any observing done at all, other than some quick looks at the moon and planets. Light pollution was starting to make its presence felt and the skies I once knew were lost! Our return to oz in 2001 rekindled the astro spark in me in a big way. I kinda made a promise to myself that if I were to ever return to oz, I would get back into active stargazing in a big way. In a matter of months I went from a 76mm alt-az newtonian reflector to a 6" Bird-Jones EQ3-2 scope. I was in astro heaven. Several comets came my way to between 2001 and present. The list includes Comet NEAT (C/2002 V1), Comet Linear (C/2002 T7). Both reached naked eye visibility within weeks of each other, with Comet NEAT being the brighter of the two. In fact NEAT was one of the brighter naked eye comets I have seen since Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. I tracked and sketched them from my then apartment with the two balconies (still my fave apartment in oz even though it had no air conditioning) and from Leyburn. The skies back then in Brissie were great. I could detect galaxies down to magnitude 10 from my apartment balcony, M33 was visible in binoculars and the milky way was visible late at night on a cold winter's day...sadly light pollution was getting worse when I left Brissie in 2010.

Comet McNaught early 2007 past its peak Mount Cootha, Brisbane, Australia

The start of 2007 was to be the year of great comets. Everyone in the southern hemisphere remembers the supremely bright Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1). This comet was so bright, it was arguably the comet of the century. The only downside was the crummy weather we got around the time Comet McNaught was the brightest. While I spied its ridiculously bright nucleus in broad daylight (its was a mixture of red and orange!!!!), I only saw hints of its spectacular tail from my rooftop observing platform at the QBP building where I was doing my graduate research then. I used both my trusty 10x50 and my 15x70 on Optex tripod. The timing was just wrong, I had just returned from a trip home and did not have the time to make a trip to Leyburn. Its brilliance did not last very long and by the time the weather cleared up, the comet was past its peak. Still managed some decent shots of the Comet from Mount Cootha, pictured here.

 Comet Holmes late 2007, Mount Cootha, Brisbane, Australia

Later that year, another comet sprang a surprise. As mentioned previouly, comets are notoriously difficult to predict! A periodic comet, Comet Holmes suddenly decided to brighten to naked eye visibility. Periodic comets are usually faint and rather predictable. Since our line of sight was looking down from the top of its head, not much of a tail was visible. But boy did it have a big, hazy coma. This one was very easy to image with my old P850 camera with its not too sensitive chip. Got some good shots of it from Mount Cootha, the darkest and highest spot close to Brisbane City. I still miss driving up there just to take in the sights of the city at night!

My last comet from Brisbane, Australia before my big move to sunny Southern California was Comet Lulin. This comet was bright too, though not nearly as bright as most of the others I had seen. I tried to image it from Leyburn but to no success. Ah well it did looked pretty in my scopes.

Comet Panstarr's April 2013 Santa Monica, SoCal

Fastforward to 2013. This year promises to be another good year for comet lovers. The year was supposed to start off with a bang in April although Comet Panstarr's failed to live up to its predicted brightness. There were factors conspiring to not allow Panstarr's to live up to its billing as a brilliant naked eye comet. For one it was very close to the horizon at twilight. You had to know where to look to see it. But once you saw it, there was no mistaking the comet. I spied the comet, abeilt more difficult from Santa Monica a day after its "special pairing" with the very new moon. The comet was naked eye, but just barely. I got a couple of shots of it through my 20x80 tripod mounted binoculars, of all things. Even made a couple of video's of it using my Samsung Galaxy SIII. Ah technology has surely come a long way.

So now the anticipation begins. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good showing from Comet ISON, it probably being the first of the great comets to grace the northern skies after Hale-Bopp in 1997. It has surely been a long wait for northern hemisphere skywatchers, and since I am now one of them, I am hoping and praying that this will be the next McNaught/Lovejoy. And hopefully it has a nice striated tail like McNaught and its brilliance too. This time I will be ready for some great comet photographs!!!!