Elenin News

[Night Owl]

The latest observations and images show Elenin has started to fade out in brightness which might indicate Elenin is starting to disintegrate.

http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm

Quote:PERSONAL VISUAL LIGHT CURVE COMET C/2010 X1 ELENIN
Red curve is predicted rate of brightening. H0=10 and n=4.
Purple line is time of perihelion.
Black dots are personal magnitude estimates.
Observations from August 20 indicate that comet Elenin underwent a dramatic fade.
The comet is in the process of disintegrating on its way towards perihelion
and thus will no longer become potentially observable with the unaided eye.

Aug 19.


Aug 22.


Aug 23.


Aug 27.

Quote:15x10 second exposures with galaxy NGC 4348.
C11 SCT and Starlight Express MX7c CCD imager.
Comet appears to be in the process of disintegration.

So far this site is the only one reporting a possible Elenin disintegration.

A little more info and images on their site.
http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm

[Markvette]

Too Cool !!
An honest to God, real amateur astronomer !

Now THIS is what the PC astronomers SHOULD be looking at.
Not some graphic rendition ... like a computer game. lol

Night Owl, My turn to say
Bravo, Buddy-
Bravo!!

[solrey]

First thing I notice about that series of images is in the first pic from 8/19 the camera is tracking the comet itself which blurs and elongates the stars in the background. In the rest of the pics the camera is tracking on a guide-star, notice the stars are not blurred or elongated and in the last one even the galaxy NGC 4348 is pretty sharp for a dim fuzzy. If the camera is tracking a guide-star then the comet will appear blurred and elongated.

I don't think it's disintegrating. I think it's an illusion due to tracking the comet first, then for some reason tracking a star instead of the comet. Freakin' amateurs ;) However the comet did get hit by a CME on 8/19 and the reported change in brightness seems to be confirmed.

From SpaceObs...Leonid Elenin's blog.

Quote:August 19, STEREO-B spacecraft has catched a very interesting event – the interaction of the gas coma of comet Elenin and coronal mass ejections from the Sun. On the video we can clearly see dynamics of the cometary tail, which squirming under the influence of powerful pressure of solar wind. After a brief increase, the brightness of the comet began to decreasing within a few days and reached a level of brightness that the comet was in early August.

Good stuff!

Quote:Too Cool !!
An honest to God, real amateur astronomer !

Yeah, but they need to learn to keep track of what they're tracking...lol. Besides, any fool can buy a self tracking scope and webcam-type ccd camera rig for five or six hundred bucks and hook it up to a laptop running something like Stellarium. These days ya don't have to know much about astronomy, much less astrophysics, to capture good images of things in space.

Anyways, if the comet really were disintegrating I would expect to see distinct fragments in the images instead of something like a blur.

cheers

[moonshadow]

(08-28-2011 12:47 PM)solrey Wrote:  First thing I notice about that series of images is in the first pic from 8/19 the camera is tracking the comet itself which blurs and elongates the stars in the background. In the rest of the pics the camera is tracking on a guide-star, notice the stars are not blurred or elongated and in the last one even the galaxy NGC 4348 is pretty sharp for a dim fuzzy. If the camera is tracking a guide-star then the comet will appear blurred and elongated.

I don't think it's disintegrating. I think it's an illusion due to tracking the comet first, then for some reason tracking a star instead of the comet. Freakin' amateurs ;) However the comet did get hit by a CME on 8/19 and the reported change in brightness seems to be confirmed.

From SpaceObs...Leonid Elenin's blog.

Quote:August 19, STEREO-B spacecraft has catched a very interesting event – the interaction of the gas coma of comet Elenin and coronal mass ejections from the Sun. On the video we can clearly see dynamics of the cometary tail, which squirming under the influence of powerful pressure of solar wind. After a brief increase, the brightness of the comet began to decreasing within a few days and reached a level of brightness that the comet was in early August.

Good stuff!

Quote:Too Cool !!
An honest to God, real amateur astronomer !

Yeah, but they need to learn to keep track of what they're tracking...lol. Besides, any fool can buy a self tracking scope and webcam-type ccd camera rig for five or six hundred bucks and hook it up to a laptop running something like Stellarium. These days ya don't have to know much about astronomy, much less astrophysics, to capture good images of things in space.

Anyways, if the comet really were disintegrating I would expect to see distinct fragments in the images instead of something like a blur.

cheers

Not hating on you, but just fyi, anyways is not a word.

[solrey]

Quote:Not hating on you, but just fyi, anyways is not a word.

Au contraire, mon ami. Although I wouldn't use it in formal correspondence, the word anyways is a legitimate colloquialism suitable for ya'll on this here forum. No offense...just sayin'.

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary recognizes anyways.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...1314591235

Also, from The Free Dictionary by Farlex:

Quote:anyways - used to indicate that a statement explains or supports a previous statement

After commenting on a related subject, I used the adverb "anyways" in a more lighthearted attempt to support a previous technical explanation 'cause that's how I roll. Dig?

I mean it's not like I used Queen's English throughout that comment otherwise.

cheers

[Night Owl]

Spaceweather.com is reporting on Michael Mattiazzo observations that Elenin is breaking up.

Quote:SO MUCH FOR DOOMSDAY:
Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1), widely known for inaccurate reports of its threat to Earth, appears to be breaking apart. Observations by amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo of Castlemaine, Australia show a rapid dimming and elongation of the comet's nucleus akin to that of Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4), which also disintegrated when it approached the sun in 2000. Comets are fragile objects, so this development while unexpected comes as no surprise.

http://spaceweather.com/

Latest image from Mattiazzo on Aug 29.

Quote:10x10second exposures. C11 SCT and Starlight Express MX7c CCD imager.

Quote:Animation of 5 images taken Aug 19,22,23,27,29 displaying the nucleus in the process of disintegrating.

http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm

[moonshadow]

Well crap! I would rather die by a comet than by radiation poisoning any day. Can't someone do something?!?

[Fleck]

ELEtards FTL