Sam, it is certainly a southern hemisphere object at this time.? I was planning on trying for the comet from arizona on around the 6th, but at the time the comet just clears the horizon - its way too light for anything other than Venus!??
Clear Skies,
Chris Schur
Schur's Web Portal: http://www.schursastrophotography.com
On Friday, December 27, 2024 at 02:16:03 AM MST, planetaryscience via groups.io <planetaryscience@...> wrote:
Hi all,
I have not seen much discussion about C/2024 G3 of late. While I personally doubt that it will survive to perihelion, I still think that its behavior as it approaches perihelion will be noteworthy. The comet has already reached magnitude 6 after all! It's currently the brightest comet in the sky.
I've just imaged it from X09 this morning. Attached is a single 30-second R-filter exposure at different brightness settings to show different details of the comet. The nucleus seems well-condensed and healthy at r=0.65 AU, but it has yet to reach its Bortle distance so this isn't much surprise.
Whatever happens will develop quickly, as by this time next week the comet will be at r=0.44, then r=0.19 the week after that. Its Bortle distance, for reference, is about 0.33 AU - which is not a hard predictor of disintegration distance but a very vague guideline.
The comet (or possibly its debris) will enter LASCO C3's field of view on Jan 11th at about r=0.14.
