HK Comet Watching

This years Santa piece was inspired by the scientists predicting a spectacular comet in 2013“ as bright as the moon near the end of the year“ or it could also disintegrate near the sun apparently! With so many people gazing up at the night sky to see Comet ISON, Santa is unable to do any practice runs before Christmas. With Comets help, they monitor the situation with ˜Toms Christmas present. Tom is our next door neighbour who is interested in astronomy and currently has Peters telescope on loan. Also on this piece you will see Comet ISON C/2012 S1. The name stands for International Scientific Optical Network and it was discovered by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok. The comet is closes to the sun (called its perihelion) on November 28 2013. Many comets come from the Oort cloud on the very edge of the solar system. Comet Pan STARRS C/2011 L4 is with us as I write. Unfortunately a clear night sky in the UK is rarer than....well a comet! Still, only 110,000 years before it comes ba...