Wednesday, 13 March 2013

PanSTARRS Comet seen from & Wren seen in the garden

A Wren was seen mid afternoon foraging around the flower bed by the conservatory, lets hope it survives the current wintry spell. I went out at 7pm to look for the PanSTARRS Comet having failed to locate either it or the Moon yesterday. However I quickly located the Moon, due west from our garden, it being either a new or old one being very crescent shaped at the bottom. You can tell I'm not a budding astronomer! I did see a bright star around 10 o'clock from it, wasn't sure if that was it, it wasn't!) I am very grateful to have received a a tweet from James W stating it was below the Moon at 5 o'clock, I promptly went out and looked and there it was! A yellowy/ orange "speck" at that exact position. When I looked 20 minutes later it was a little lower (and less obvious) and I showed Jenny. Around 20 minutes later, it had disappeared beneath the horizon, which Dick W had tweeted the same bit of news to confirm. An astronomical tick! Thanks chaps. Finally does anyone know why the STARRS bit is capitalised? UPDATE: I have reliably informed by friend and colleague Michael B at work that the bright star seen at the location "10 o'clock", seen at the time 7pm GMT from the crescent moon was indeed the PANSTARRS comet, this was the area where he told me to look (a big belated thanks to Michael for his help here) and subsequent sightings of it below it were not the comet.

2 comments:

James Emerson said...

The STARRS bit is capitalised because its an acronym. The comet is commonly named Pan-STARRS after the survey that found it: Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System.

Peter Ransome said...

thanks for the info James, much appreciated.
Best wishes, Peter