Did
you sleep through the
auroras of Dec. 14th? Next time get a wake-up call:
Spaceweather
PHONE.
AURORA
WATCH: Sky watchers
from Scandinavia to Alaska should be alert for auroras
tonight. A high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's
magnetic field and causing geomagnetic storms at high
latitudes.
COMET
DOWN UNDER: Want
to visit Australia? Now would be a good time. The brightest
comet in 40 years is heading Down Under. "For
us in the southern hemisphere, Comet McNaught put on its
first real show last night," reports photographer
Mike Salway
of New South Wales, Australia, where the comet was visible
to the unaided eye at sunset:
Photo
details: Canon
350D, 300mm
lens, f/5, ISO 100, 1.3 sec exposure
Experienced
observers place the comet's magnitude between -4 and -4.5,
in other words, a smidgen brighter than Venus. It pops
out of the twilight in the western sky as soon as the
sun begins to set: finder
chart.
Just
last week, McNaught was a northern comet, but over the
weekend it passed by the sun, moving north to south. En
route it became so bright that many people saw it in broad
daylight. Imagine... a
comet in blue sky.
Now
Comet
McNaught is emerging from the glare, and it should
remain a spectacular fixture in sunset skies of the southern
hemisphere for weeks to come. Stay tuned!
Comet
McNaught Photo Gallery
[finder
chart] [ephemeris]
[orbit]
MEANWHILE
ON THE SUN:
"Everybody is looking for the comet, but is anybody
still monitoring the Sun?" wonders Philippe
Vercoutter of Ieper, Belgium who took this picture
on Jan. 15th:
His
photo shows "considerable activity around new sunspot
938." Although the sunspot is small, a long stare
through the eyepiece of a
solar telescope rewards the observer with surges of
bright light and slowly-waving magnetic fields. It's the
next best thing to a Great Comet.
more
images: from
Franck Charlier of Marines, Val d'Oise - France
SPACE WEATHER
SPACE WEATHER
