¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

ctrl + shift + ? for shortcuts
© 2025 Groups.io

Re: Comet of the century or pipe dream?


 

I'm crudely estimating from the posted uncertainties that the 3¦Ò uncertainty ellipse is somewhere around 20 arcmin across, which is rather large for JWST whose largest camera only covers a pair of 2.2x2.2 arcmin fields.

The full ellipse still about fits within a single Roman field, and that telescope should be about as sensitive as Hubble = only ~1-2 mag less sensitive than JWST for the same exposure time (which should make actually Roman faster at searching the full field to the same depth). However, given that solar system science is an extremely low priority for that telescope, I doubt a dedicated search program that goes sufficiently deep for a realistic chance of detection (likely taking a few days) would ever be approved. I think the best chance here would be to find a team with a non-solar system science case to do a deep observation of a field that fits the characteristics of the comet search field, and ask them to target that search field for their program.

Qicheng

On Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 07:31:54 a.m. MST, Adrien Coffinet via groups.io <adrien.coffinet2@...> wrote:


Mag 34 for JWST is ultra-deep field like when Hubble reaches mag 31+. I'm not convinced that they would make such an ultra-deep field just to recover such a comet that would anyway be recovered long before perihelion by more classical telescopes, unless one really has a good reason for such an observation, or has something else more certain to observe in this field.

Adrien


Le dim. 4 mai 2025, 16:12, Maik Meyer via <maik=[email protected]> a ¨¦crit?:
Thanks Rob!

> "Some people want to achieve immortality through their works or their descendants. I prefer to achieve immortality by
> not dying."
>
> So far, so good, therefore maybe I'll live long enough (and/or technology will improve fast enough) for me to witness
> the recovery of this comet while I'm a "young" centenarian (and not that long after the next return of 1P/Halley!) ? --Rob

All,

coming back to the possibility of recovery attempts in the coming decades. I really hope it would be possible withing
the next 20 years.

And I really wonder...

I've read somewhere that JWST is able to down to 34 mag! The Deep Field at least showed objects that faint. Integration
time must have been quite long. So, I assume it should be possible, technically, already now if one really knows where
to look.

Regards

Maik
--
"One cannot discover comets lying in bed." * Lewis Swift
________________________________________________________________________








Join [email protected] to automatically receive all group messages.