From: TerryMoselaol.com
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 18:53:52 EDT
Subject: More on Deep Impact

Hi all,

Some of you won't have got my last email because your firewall or server or 
ISP rejected it since it had a starmap attached as a JPEG file. Or else your 
mailboxes would not accept such a large file. The map showed the position of 
Comet 9P / Tempel 1 from Monday night to Saturday night, so you could have a look 
to see what effect the NASA Deep Impact probe would have on the comet (it's 
expected to make it brighten from 10th to about 6th magnitude).

But since you can't receive the starmap, you may simply look about 4 degrees 
ENE of Spica (or about 10.30 O'Clock on a clock face as it will appear on the 
sky relative to the horizon) as soon as the sky gets dark on Monday night. If 
you have a good star atlas it will lie just a bit left of the midpoint of a 
line joining 76 and 82 Virginis. The comet moves about half a degree a day to 
the SE each night if you want to look on succeeding nights.

The actual impact will occur about 05.50 UT on Monday morning, but of course 
we can't see that: however the comet should still be markedly brighter than 
before impact even by the time of darkness later that night. You'll need a clear 
W horizon to see that part of the sky.

There's TV coverage of the event as follows:

Monday, 11.45am, BBC1 TV: "Deep Impact" - Dr Brian Cox from NASA Control.
 
Monday, 8.00pm, BBC1 TV: "Comet Impact - Stardate" (By this time we should 
have some idea as to what the effect on the comet has been; it will give you an 
idea what to expect if you go out to look at it.)

Clear Skies,

Terry Moseley

Last Revised: 2005 July 14th WWW contact:webmaster@arm.ac.uk

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