COMET 103P/Hartley 2 ON 20/10/10

Iancar29

At present, the comet is a 7th-magnitude object best seen through telescopes.The view will improve, perhaps even to naked-eye visibility, as the comet glides by Earth only 11 million miles away on Oct. 20th.


Wit Ireland under a near-full moon. whats the chances of seeing this people??????

whynotdo

Iancar29 wrote: »

At present, the comet is a 7th-magnitude object best seen through telescopes.The view will improve, perhaps even to naked-eye visibility, as the comet glides by Earth only 11 million miles away on Oct. 20th.


Wit Ireland under a near-full moon. whats the chances of seeing this people??????

Thanks for that Iancar,This was the best answer i could find:

[Perihelion Date=2010 October 28; Period=6.47 years]
<LI class=textserif>One of the earlierst predictions for this apparition came from K. Kino****a in January 2007. He took 564 positions from the comet's apparitions of 1985, 1991, 1997, and 2004, and predicted the comet would pass perihelion on 2010 October 28.27. A prediction by S. Nakano during April 2007 used 615 positions from the apparitions of 1991, 1997, and 2004, and gave the perihelion date as October 28.24. This apparition will be the most favorable since the comet's discovery, as the comet will pass only 0.12 AU (11 million miles) from Earth on 2010 October 20. The comet is expected to reach magnitude 5, which will enable it to be a naked-eye object for observers in very dark skies.
A nice time lapse of it here taken by Telescopes:



full article here with its history and many more images:

http://cometography.com/pcomets/103p.html