I was reading Joe's SLAS blast on the comet and have some thoughts. This isn't a "Great Comet", by any means, actually it's not even a "good" comet. I guess once you see a Great comet such as Bennett or West, others pale in comparison. Certainly Hale-Bopp was pretty spectacular, even if a bit shy of "Great" status, and Hyakutake was in a league of it's own. The longest comet I've ever seen, but ghostly pale and almost eerie. I'd even put Ikeya-Zhang above PanSTARRS. That said, we don't see naked-eye comets (or those verging on naked-eye visibility) very often (at least in the northern hemisphere lately- what's up with that?) so even these little guys are kind of special to us. I do think that we as a community tend to go overboard when dealing with the press, and especially so with comets. Anybody who's been doing this for a while knows that comet visibility predictions, even though based on data and carefully plotted brightness curves- are no better than rolling dice. I think press releases on things like this should wait until such time as a comet is actually big and bright enough for the general public to see and recognize as something special. As astronomers, we get excited over little nebulous puffs, but the general public do not. I wonder if sometimes we do ourselves and our hobby a disservice by promoting the average or below-par (from the public's viewpoint). Crying Wolf isn't really the right analogy, I think in the public eye we come off more like cosmic Dead-Heads. Fans who follow our band everywhere and are completely consumed by it. Well, most of us are, but a lot of what we get excited about just won't ever really infect 99.99% of the public the way it infected us. I plan on going to SPOC tonight because a comet is a comet, and these little ones have their own charms. Also I won't have to contend with the neighbor's patio lights until ten PM. A "Great Comet" is something that we only get to witness a very few times during a lifetime, if we are lucky. So I'll get my fix with this little guy and bide my time for the next really knock-your-socks-off comet. (Gets down off soap-box)
The last great comet was Hyakutake
I was reading Joe's SLAS blast on the comet and have some thoughts.
This isn't a "Great Comet", by any means, actually it's not even a "good" comet. I guess once you see a Great comet such as Bennett or West, others pale in comparison. Certainly Hale-Bopp was pretty spectacular, even if a bit shy of "Great" status, and Hyakutake was in a league of it's own. The longest comet I've ever seen, but ghostly pale and almost eerie. I'd even put Ikeya-Zhang above PanSTARRS. That said, we don't see naked-eye comets (or those verging on naked-eye visibility) very often (at least in the northern hemisphere lately- what's up with that?) so even these little guys are kind of special to us.
I do think that we as a community tend to go overboard when dealing with the press, and especially so with comets. Anybody who's been doing this for a while knows that comet visibility predictions, even though based on data and carefully plotted brightness curves- are no better than rolling dice. I think press releases on things like this should wait until such time as a comet is actually big and bright enough for the general public to see and recognize as something special. As astronomers, we get excited over little nebulous puffs, but the general public do not. I wonder if sometimes we do ourselves and our hobby a disservice by promoting the average or below-par (from the public's viewpoint). Crying Wolf isn't really the right analogy, I think in the public eye we come off more like cosmic Dead-Heads. Fans who follow our band everywhere and are completely consumed by it. Well, most of us are, but a lot of what we get excited about just won't ever really infect 99.99% of the public the way it infected us.
I plan on going to SPOC tonight because a comet is a comet, and these little ones have their own charms. Also I won't have to contend with the neighbor's patio lights until ten PM.
A "Great Comet" is something that we only get to witness a very few times during a lifetime, if we are lucky. So I'll get my fix with this little guy and bide my time for the next really knock-your-socks-off comet.
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We got a pretty nice view of it down here near Kanab. I took a ton of pictures, put one of them and a crop on my site: http://www.ricosweb.net/PanSTARRS.htm Rich Allen
On 13 Mar 2013, at 08:32, Chuck Hards wrote:
This isn't a "Great Comet", by any means, actually it's not even a "good" comet.
Agreed that it's not a great comet but I'm not ready to demote it to "not good". Sunday evening it was very good. Easily seen from SPOC if one knew where to look. By last evening it had faded but still displayed a nice little tail and obvious coma. Compared to most comets which can't be seen without a telescope I rated last night's view as good+. And I know what you mean about over hyping. Every media person I've spoken to I've related the story of Comet Kohoutek and how its being over hyped ending up spoiling the view of the truly spectacular Comet West for so many people. I'm concerned it's happening again. So many of the Pan-STARRS pictures being shown on TV were taken from down south when it was much brighter. And people are even openly speculating that ISON, and even its tail, will be visible during daylight. "Brighter than the full Moon." Give me a break! Let's all hope that'll be the case but let's keep those thoughts amongst ourselves until there is real evidence that it's happening. Oh and Chuck, regarding crying wolf, have a look at yesterday's Bagley cartoon on the subject of crying wolf. :) patrick
participants (4)
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Chuck Hards -
erikhansen＠thebluezone.net -
Patrick Wiggins -
Rich Allen