Comet Ison

[sooey]

Hale Bopp, that was the one.

 

[Sombrero]

Hale Bopp.

I was living at 7000ft in the Rocky Mountains when it came through, a small ski town in the middle of nowhere with hardly any visible light pollution at all.

The comet was quite frankly stunning, and I really mean quite amazing. I can fully understand why the ancients got so worked up about them and thought they were harbingers of doom and destruction. The tail covered a third of the sky up there and just forced you to look at it. It was a very very obvious visitor to a night sky that is remarkable in its unchanging nature. It must have been there for months.

If this one is as good as Hale Bopp I'd travel anywhere in the world to get a good look. The view from the UK was pitiful compared to how it looked somewhere with good viewing conditions. If this new one turns out to be as good as predicted you should go somewhere really dark and see it, they are truly magnificent and psychologically quite sinister.

15 times briter than a full moon - we will see this in the day tme !!!

 

[sooey]

chapeau, that site you described up in the rockies sounds like an ideal place to see andromeda.
Did you ever see it, if you did how big did it appear in relation to a full moon.
It's something I've always wanted to see with the naked eye but I've never been anywhere I could make it out from.

 

[joinerjohn]

Yep Hale Bopp. Very distinctive in the night sky as it had two tails.

 

[joe-90]

The tail doesn't follow the comet though (as you might expect it would).

 

[chapeau]

The tail doesn't follow the comet though (as you might expect it would).

That's what you might expect because you don't have a clue about how these things work.

chapeau, that site you described up in the rockies sounds like an ideal place to see andromeda.
Did you ever see it, if you did how big did it appear in relation to a full moon.
It's something I've always wanted to see with the naked eye but I've never been anywhere I could make it out from.

The best place I've ever seen the night sky is in the Utah Desert. I was driving from Phoenix to Colorado and was knackered so pulled over outside Moab for a kip. Woke up and thought the sky was covered in clouds but it was 3 in the morning, very confusing but worked out it was the Milky Way. Far far more stars were visible than usual and it looked like a white fluffy cloud, quite unusual.

Think it was the dry air that made the difference as well as being in the middle of nowhere. I've seen the milky way from the middle of Africa and other places with zero light pollution but they cannot beat that night in desert with dry air.

Suspect that's why they put telescopes up in the Chile deserts. I'm guessing people like airline pilots have even better stories to tell.

I cannot say I've ever knowingly seen Andromeda, I think that place in Colorado was a good place as I lived there so got many viewing conditions, a lot of nights were cloudy so couldn't see anything, then of course I was there on moonless nights too. It might not have had perfect conditions, just very good on one night in three. We went up to 12000 ft one night many miles from the nearest streetlight to see if it made a difference and it didn't.

But if this comet is as good as they hope I'd fly somewhere to see it. Simply stunning.

 

[joe-90]

The tail doesn't follow the comet though (as you might expect it would).

That's what you might expect because you don't have a clue about how these things work.

It's because I know how things work that I know the tail doesn't wag the fookin dog. What kind of thicko are you?

 

[joe-90]

The best place I've ever seen the night sky is in the Utah Desert. I was driving from Phoenix to Colorado and was knackered so pulled over outside Moab for a kip. Woke up and blah blah blah.

Who gives a fookin ****?

 

[chapeau]

Clearly you do Joe as you took the time to be offensive. Am I going to have to put you in your place again? Any interesting cave dwelling tales to tell?

 

[joe-90]

Go on then.

 

[joe-90]

BTW, I kicked Uri's ass that badly he went away and hasn't been back since. You wouldn't know that though as you dropped out of the thread as you knew you were looking decidedly silly.