A New View of Comet ISON

By Nancy Atkinson - May 3, 2013 at 2:11 AM UTC | Planetary Science
LT_ISON_May02.jpg

Update:

Here's a brand new image of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON, as seen on May 2, 2013 by Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes of the

Remanzacco Observatory

(their image from May 1, which we featured earlier, is below.) For this latest image, they used the 2-meter Ritchey-Chretien Liverpool Telescope. Via

Facebook

, Howes said they have been able to identify almost the same tail structure which was seen in the

Hubble Space Telescope images of this comet from April 10.

From the May 1 observations, their initial approximation of the tail length is around 28 arcseconds, which Howes told Universe Today is bigger than some recent reports from smaller scopes.

Below is their image from May 1, using the 2 meter La Palma Telescope:

[caption id="attachment_101921" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

View of Comet ISON on May 1, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory. [/caption]

As of May 2, Comet ISON was approximately 3.885 AU from the Sun, which is about 581 million kilometers (361 million miles) distant from the Sun. ISON will makes its close approach to the Sun when it passes within 1.2 million km (730,000 miles) of the Sun on November 28, 2013.

Here's a video from NASA about this comet's path through the Solar System:

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com